Attention, Platforms, and Mastodon

Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter will end it, and the successor is clear: Mastodon. But Mastodon is different in its content and tone, but it's also organized in a way that makes it fundamentally different from virtually all other platforms.

What was Twitter? Like almost all other things that called themselves platforms, Twitter is a for-profit US corporation at the service of investors, just like Facebook, and Facebook’s subsidiary Instagram, as well as Google and its subsidiary Youtube. TikTok is unique among these big platforms in that it is not from the US but is a subsidiary of the government of China.

There are several consequences of these platforms having this fundamental nature. The first is that they can be bought and sold and are controlled by individuals. Individuals whose goal for the most part is to get money out of them. Although Twitter was smaller and created much less revenue than, for example, Facebook, a billionaire bought it and began making and remaking lots of brash and ill-considered decisions about it. As with all these platforms, the users had felt a degree of stability and predictability, these platforms had become a part of their users’ lives. With Twitter, that ended abruptly. It was as if a group of pensioners would meet each day in a town square that they thought of as public space to chat and play cards, and one day somebody told them that it isn’t public space but that it is owned and now they had to pay, or only some people could join, or some things couldn't be discussed. They'd all gotten used to some informal rules and felt, if not common ownership, at least some consensus. Then they realized they'd been wrong. Now that they have had this realization, they have found a new park in which that won’t happen. They miss some parts of the old park, they were used to it. But they are getting used to the new one, and best of all, this time a billionaire will not break in and change the rules. 

The discussion, posting, and everything else these legacy platforms allow, all serves the goal of moving money from advertisers to shareholders. Those who post, write, and connect there have no rights and are only there as a conduit to the money. For that reason, these platforms all have algorithms to put things in front of users that will maximize their profits. Often what makes the most money is putting the most divisive, aggressive, siloed posts in front of users. These algorithms work to keep us each scrolling through our feed, observing aggression and discord, even when we haven’t followed anybody or made any decisions about what we want to see. But by doing that, they divide us and encourage us to dislike and mistrust other groups we may have less contact with. These algorithms make their owners money but are by their very nature, divisive.

The reason Mastodon is different is that nobody owns it and it has no algorithm. If you join Twitter and follow nobody, you will still have a feed, Twitter will guess what you want to see. The more you click and scroll, or as they call it “engage”, the more you "like" this or that, click on this or that, the more it will be able to guess what will keep you liking and clicking, even if you follow almost nobody. Facebook, including Instagram, is similarly arranged. They all want you to follow and connect more with others because that is valuable information for them. Mastodon is not a for-profit corporation, there is no advertising and no algorithm. In this way, unlike the other corporations, it is a true platform. If you join and don't follow any people or tags, you don't see anything. You see exactly who and what you follow, nothing more or less. And this makes it feel different. It feels calmer. Nicer. It is not set up for arguing. It is much easier to check briefly and get off, even if you follow lots of people. It's this way because nobody controls it, and it has nothing to gain or lose from anybody being on or off it. 

Mastodon really is what the other platforms pretend to be, just a public space. 

There are other efforts to vacuum up those fleeing Twitter. There is one called Post but it is exactly the same venture capital model as the rest, although it says it will be nicer. There are many others. But Mastodon has won.

Mastodon is decentralized so everybody who joins must join a particular server or instance as it is called. Rorshok has set up a server. Because there is no secretariat or headquarters of Mastodon, the moderation responsibilities fall to these instances. Some are giant, some are small. Think of them as cities or neighborhoods, which may have different types of people or a different vibe. Although to join Mastodon you must join an instance, you can then see and interact with people from any of the thousands of other instances, so the instance you join doesn’t matter that much and is easy to switch. The Rorshok instance will be a small one. It looks similar to Twitter but there are a few new things. On Mastodon, you want to follow as many other accounts as you can since it won’t throw things in front of you automatically. But there are many lists of great accounts to follow, most of them very new.

We are doing this as a part of our overall mission, to connect people around ideas, around the world, and to come together. We feel like we are ready. There is also an ethical aspect to this. These corporations, particularly Facebook/Instagram, are dangerous. They divide much more than they unite. Although people can argue that they keep us informed, do they really help us better understand our world? Do they help us emotionally? Do we like how they encourage us to spend our time? Some of us, maybe. But for many, they divide and then weaponize that division. And they refuse to admit it. They have their place, particularly in terms of creating a way that we can each be found. By all means, have an account there. But best not to engage with them on their terms, which means don't allow yourself to be used by them. 

If you are interested in seeing what this is all about, we want to invite you to join our Rorshok Mastodon server https://rorshok.social/about. In case you need any help in setting up your account, don’t hesitate to reach out and one of our team members will lend you a hand: info@rorshok.com

Try Mastodon.