Mastodon CEO calls Meta's moderation changes 'deeply troubling,' warns users cross-posting from Threads
(techcrunch.com)
from pete_link@lemmy.ml to technology@lemmy.ml on 09 Jan 04:26
https://lemmy.ml/post/24585305
from pete_link@lemmy.ml to technology@lemmy.ml on 09 Jan 04:26
https://lemmy.ml/post/24585305
Sarah Perez
11:39 AM PST · January 8, 2025
threaded - newest
How can a decentralized platform have a CEO?
You recognize that Mastodon, the software, is developed by a non-profit called Mastodon gGmbH?
Mastodon gHmbH? What happened there? Was he naming the company and somehow fell on the keyboard?
Close, it’s German. Basically an LLC.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GmbH
No it’s not. It’s a gGmbH. Notice the leading “g”. It’s a nonprofit company.
de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinnützige_GmbH
Unfortunately there is no English translation of that page on Wikipedia.
Let’s just call it a nonprofit.
gGmbH = gemeinnützige Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung = limited liability company serving the public benefit
God damn the German language sure uses the entire alphabet in every word…How do they fit names onto their street signs???
wat
Replace ss with ß.
the longest street name in Germany is “Bischöflich-Geistlicher-Rat-Josef-Zinnbauer-Straße”, which I don’t think is that different from something like “St Martin-in-the-Fields Church Path” in the UK.
(I’m purposefully ignoring Wales, because they’re just fucking with us at this point)
Are the Welsh fucking anything other than their flock?
Do you have a problem with the language that’s half l and y?
The can keep their l’s and y’s, my issue is that I don’t trust their language after their longest town name was arbitrarily made so to reap in unsuspecting tourists
Well thank goodness they have that ß character to help keep their street names so efficient.
Is the first g the “for public benefit” part? Because isn’t GmbH an evil company?
Also, isn’t the norm that if you’re doing good, you don’t name the leader a CEO but a Director or something?
yes, gemeinnützig = serving the public benefit (literally approximately: gemein = common, nützig = useful, i.e. useful to the common good)
GmbH is just the (almost literal) translation of LLC.
And we’re on Lemmy, so any LLC is inherently evil. /s
If your goal is profit, then yes.
/not s
When I was a kid I always pictured a goomba when I saw GmbH.
<img alt="" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fb/Goomba_by_Shigehisa_Nakaue.png">
Thats a good association.
Lmfao, no clue why you’re being downvoted so much. It’s absolutely true that the camel-case here looks like a clusterfuck, even when it’s easily explained.
@Lost_My_Mind @TheTechnician27 A gGmbH is roughly comparable to a PBLLC.
Cat on the keyboard. Been there…
Actually I was not aware of that, thank you for telling me.
His name is John Mastodon.
His full name is John Mastodon Pterodactyl Triceratops Sabre-tooh Tiger Tyrannosaurus but he just goes by John Mastodon for short.
Nice. I wonder if he also plays drums for Mastodon.
you joke but, a little-known fact is that gargron named the mastodon software after that band as it is his favorite
edit: related loudersound.com/…/mastodon-social-media-band-twit…
Thank goodness Boint Boint is here to explain.
Because there’s a company that makes the software used to run a Mastodon instance. Same way Mozilla has a CEO even though they’re not in charge of the internet.
Who wants to be CEO of lemmy btw? You’ll have no power over anything, but we can call you that from now on as a joke.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/9742b30a-ee18-4603-ae2d-38e80739cda6.jpeg">
Sup
“Who saw that comi… who saw where that came from!”
How do I find out if my Mastodon server is federated with Threads?
At least on mine, there’s an “About” link on the bottom left side on the web interface, click that and scroll to the bottom where you’ll get a list of blocked servers, then just uncollapse that and ctrl+f for “threads.net”.
fedipact.veganism.social has a search feature.
This is old, it still has the (now defunct) feddit.de instead of feddit.org
RIF feddit.de 😔
Nice. Pretty happy that most of the fediverse, and most lemmy instances, are blocking threads.
Also if you search “@threads.net” in your mastodon client and you find users from that server, then your server should be connected
Even if your Mastodon instance is federated with Threads, you can still block the whole domain from your account. Explanation / walkthrough here: mastodon.social/@_elena/113797840274825233
That’s my secret, Captain, I’m always defederated from corporate social media.
Damn! If only someone could’ve predicted that Meta would eventually do something stupid like this! If only we had defederated from them from the start /s
But nobody could have seen that coming! /s
fedipact.online
Oh, no It’s not like Mastodon instances have fact checkers or even sufficient moderation staff
Many instances are fairly well-moderated I would argue
Back in my day we were perfectly capable of checking our own facts. A rare skill these days.
I have an idea. Make it so every time you create a social media account, you have to check "agree" to a giant banner that says "if you take anything you see on here seriously, you are an idiot.". That's how we used to automatically treat things on the Internet at first glance.
That’s what I don’t get about people getting mad at the removal of “fact checkers”. Zuck was right in that they were uneducated and highly biased. Their “context” a lot of time was downright misleading. I never trusted them anyway because I don’t get my news from random people on the internet.
Bullshit. Where would you get these facts? From sources curated by government censors and Cold War propagandists.
I watched a damn Doris Day movie last month that had imperialist propaganda shoved in it. No living person predates propaganda, and your overconfidence that you were able to sort it out with even less information sources available is ridiculous.
That's the idea, overwhelm people with massive amounts of information and misinformation, and people start tuning out and not caring anymore. One thing I did learn from those "propaganda" sources of days past was that the Holocaust was real, a fuckton of minorities were brutally murdered, and Nazis are fucksticks who need to be stamped out at every opportunity.
That is something I've actually seen actively changing in the past 20 years. When I was a kid/teen, we never fucking questioned it. Now the Internet is full of Holocaust deniers. Just spreading that shit from person to person like a virus.
We didn't blindly trust other sources either. Filtering and research is a skill you learn to use on any source of info you're given. Public schools used to teach us how to do this. Do they not anymore?
You’re looking at it with rose colored glasses. There have been Holocaust deniers ever since the Holocaust.
And now we have an ongoing genocide being live-streamed by the very people committing it, and they’re still denying genocide.
Yes. But they didn't have a megaphone to reach millions with one post. They were rightfully looked at as crazy assholes and mostly stayed in the dark.
No, you’re either misremembering or intentionally misstating to advocate for censorship. Holocaust denial has been prevalent in media and among the powerful as well.
The entire reason it was allowed to happen was because of denial by the media and the powerful. Not some working class assholes with a printing press. And we see it playing out exactly the same way now with the genocide in Palestine.
I find it funny how every time an oligarch owned platform starts getting popular people start screeching about Fediverse losing momentum. Yet, every few years these platforms inevitably start doing things that horrify their users and we see another exodus to open platforms happen.
I agree, but I don’t think we’re in the cycle just yet, it feels like there’s a big tipping point we’re about to reach in the western owned social medium.
It’s possible that we’ll hit a point of critical mass where Fediverse becomes the dominant social media platform, but I don’t think explosive growth is necessary either. Growth for the sake of growth holds little inherent value. Unlike commercial platforms reliant on VC funding to survive, Fediverse thrives on sustainability. What really matters is that there are enough developers to maintain the platforms, people to host the servers, and users to create content. With these elements in place, platforms like Lemmy and Mastodon can continue indefinitely without the need to attract users at a rapid pace.
In fact, rapid growth could do more harm than good. A sudden influx of users often brings toxic behaviors. When new users trickle in slowly, they adapt to the existing norms and culture of the community. But when a horde arrives, they risk overwhelming and reshaping the community in ways that trample over its core values. A steady stream of users allows for organic integration, preserving the essence of what makes sites like Lemmy pleasant.
Unlike commercial platforms, open-source projects don’t rely on profit motives to survive. They’re driven by people who directly benefit from their work and are passionate about their vision. When disagreements arise, projects can be forked, allowing different groups to take them in new directions. Even if a project is abandoned, it can be revived by a new team as long as there’s a dedicated community. This flexibility and resilience make open source inherently more sustainable than commercial platforms, which can vanish overnight if funding dries up.
The Fediverse, and Lemmy within it, only needs a large enough user base to remain self-sustaining. I’d argue that it’s already well past that threshold. There’s no rush to grow rapidly. Steady progress ensures the community retains its identity and values, while the open-source nature of the platform guarantees its longevity. Lemmy isn’t just another platform; it’s a sustainable, adaptable ecosystem built to endure. I’m willing to bet that Lemmy will still be around long after sites like Reddit crumble to dust.
I’m convinced its a combination of media silence on the fediverse (so most people don’t know about it as an alternative), and younger audiences who don’t know the history.
Because I can’t imagine why grown adults who know the history of these companies, would do the goofy I’ll fkn do it again meme, ten times in a row.
Relative obscurity is an aspect of it for sure, and I imagine networking effects are a big part of it as well. Accounts with a lot of followers tend to drive where people migrate. When a big account leaves twitter to bluesky they can pull thousands or even millions of users along with them. Meanwhile, people moving to Fediverse end up having to abandon a lot of the people they were following as a result. It’s also a lot easier for an account to grow on a centralized platform which is another reinforcing factor here.
Seems like those big accounts always choose to go from corporate platform to another corporate platform. They almost never choose to move to the fediverse.
I suspect it’s because it’s easier to have a mass following on a centralized platform. A federated platform will inherently be at odds with that. I personally don’t see that as necessarily a bad thing either as it makes the Fediverse unattractive to commercial interests and marketers.
I think ignorance (in the non pejorative sense) plays a big part. I can’t really blame my non technical friends for not fully understanding that ditching Facebook for Instagram doesn’t help. Even if they know it’s the same company, it’s still a totally different product, right? There’s also a certain apathy or need to just get something done.
I’m sure I’ve purchased things at Home Depot that would make a plumber cringe, but I know nothing about that sort of thing and I just need to get my sink working.
Still, I think those of us who do know should continue to lead by example. My friends know my stance on these things and some of them are coming around.
The fact that mastodon actually has a CEO is alarming.
Why though? Most non profits have a CEO, the power the CEO has can differ a lot, just like presidents globally.
Most nonprofits do NOT have a CEO. That’s why this is alarming.
The head of a nonprofit is usually the Executive Director.
CEOs and EDs do the same jobs. Just different names. In the U.S. there’s been a push by many non profits to change the title to CEO. Only because it sounds sexier.
No. A CEOs job is to make as much money as possible.
An Executive Director is to make decisions that align with the mission statement, which must serve the public good as much as possible.
Only CEOs think that. Everyone else thinks CEO means “cheif asshole” and is certain that if they got a 3D-printed gun to fire a bullet into the back of their head, the world would be a safer place.
CEO is basically the executive authority of a company. The board decides whether the priority is to make as much money as possible or not.
Right. CEOs are beholden to greedy investors. EDs are beholden to the mission statement. Thats the difference.
Save the children and Doctors without borders have a CEO as a counter example
Wow that’s fucked-up. I’ve donated to those two. They do good work, but they gotta get rid of their CEO title or they’re gonna get guillotined
rollingstone.com/…/ethel-cain-unitedhealthcare-ce…
Average lemmy NPC comment
lemmyworld user, opinion discarded.
smd mlite
cant talk .mler
Excuse me, are you calling me a bot, pal?
Corporate fediverse isnt true fediverse
Yeah, when my Lemmy server goes down I don’t want it to be because of a large scale cyber attack, I want it to be because some dude’s dog got the zoomies in the basement and tripped on a cable.
Does the Mastodon CEO prefer content curated by the “former” CIA & Mossad agents working at Facebook? Is Mastodon censoring content?
Meta moderation was a dumpster fire before this, I can only imagine how bad it’s going to get.
Currently they have blatant misinformation everywhere posted as real news, people read the stuff and believe it fully. It should be illegal - people are just too stupid to know Facebook is just a modern tabloid magazine.
Years ago I reported the same account for bullying the same person, every time FB came back saying “no issues found”. The site is fucked, and blatantly has been so for years. But it was recently pointed out to me it has been since the start. He’s not a nice guy.
Tabloid magazine? … it’s more like scribbled pieces of paper written by random strangers on the sidewalk … people keep reading the crap and walk away happy that their worst beliefs have just been confirmed by 100 random strangers with scribbled pieces of paper who told them so.
.
Who is the gentile here, and in what way is that relevant?
And all the goyim say I’m pretty fly for a rabbi!
Alright uncle Cletus, it’s time for your nap. Don’t forget your antipsychotic cyanide pills 🥰
we fucking said this would happen and this dumb asshole refused to defederate on the flagship instance anyway
Call me psychic. And he really is an asshole
Back when they were first able to federate (if you can even call their one-way dissemination of propaganda into the fediverse “federating”), my Mastodon instance didn’t block them so I moved to another instance that blocked them from the get-go. I wanted an instance-level block to keep their shit off the server completely, not just an individual-level “block” which is more like ignoring than blocking.