Notices by Mikko Alasaarela :equel: (alasaarela@equel.social)

TikTok is facing a ban in the US. The damage to the mental health and social life of our youth is so devastating that I would love to see the ban dropping in Europe too.

We should also force limits to all addiction inducing algorithms across all apps for the sake of our future.

Would you agree?

@rysiek TikTok definitely sends the data to CCP, but the American big tech cos share it with NSA and CIA. We Europeans are being spied on at all times.

@atomicpoet I agree about the portable identity, but it's very difficult to implement as it will dis-incentivize running your own servers that will lead to massive centralization of the ecosystem.

#Finland plans to be a leader in European hydrogen production, creating core infrastructure for zero-emission alternative to Russian gas. The first plants are already in construction.

#Europe running on green energy, here we come!

https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-//1410877/government-adopts-resolution-on-hydrogen-finland-could-produce-10-of-eu-s-green-hydrogen-in-2030

Turns out #Twitter "view counts" are fake ?

Thanks @taylorlorenz

@atomicpoet Agree with this analysis fully. The lack of moderation makes many corners of the current Mastodon downright dangerous. We should not trust that an average person running a server can handle complex moderation problems. Broad-based anonymity enables malicious actors to grow massive dormant troll farms, waiting for the day to start manipulating.

We shouldn't be stupid or naive about this, but rather build tech and methods to tackle these problems, and make them widely available to everyone.

@atomicpoet Trolls proved my point by flooding this thread with their shitpost comments.

@j2bryson @pettter @drdelle Agree with this. Interesting to see if Europe will be able to give rise to successful non-American-born, open social media platform that enables people, small businesses, and entrepreneurs to thrive on it!

@pettter @j2bryson @drdelle Mainstream social media users will go wherever they have the best experience and largest audience. The best experience is where there's universal search (which Mastodon OGs don't want), algorithmic feeds (also despised by Mastodon OGs)(I don't mean current addiction-based ones, but more feeds filtered by topic interest), acceptance for commercial behavior for creators (many Mastodon OGs are against that too) and many other things that the current mainstream social media platforms offer.

To create a true alternative to the existing big social media giants, there needs to be enough well-funded servers to take in the traffic, and enough well funded apps to compete with the existing apps. This requires business models to be in place, and regulations that allow decentralization (as per what Joanna said earlier).

If Mastodon stays niche, then it is not relevant, and it can stay like the current one forever. But then it won't matter in the big scheme of things, and won't create a meaningful change to the current status quo.

@pettter@umu.se @j2bryson @drdelle Great conversation! I always thought Europe's regulations essentially kill the possibility of local small businesses thriving in any data intensive industry, because only big American giants can handle the bureaucracy, red tape and lawsuits.

Further, the American giants are the only organizations advanced enough to be able to offer instant gratification for users in exchange for their data. Small companies can't do that, and as a result get denied access to any meaningful data to evolve competitive AIs or digital products in general.

What Joanna is saying is simply admitting this status quo, meaning that Europe made itself a vassal to the Americans through bureaucracy. A gigantic self-own.

Europe has BTW given rise to majority of the open source technologies that Americans have successfully monetized. The anti-capitalist sentiment of early Mastodon users will lead to either the feared embrace-extend-extinguish by an American giant, or it becoming irrelevant niche network.

There's a better way, though. We could create a vibrant ecosystem of small companies that enforce the openness of the ecosystem to a point that it is impossible for a single entity to take over. The companies should be allowed to monetize to fund innovations so that no large company can outrun them with money.

@j2bryson Slowly but steadily, people will move to the place where the most innovation and best conversations happen. There's already 15 third party apps for Mastodon on iOS, and many Android and web apps to use. The best UX designs are already better than Twitter, only losing in speed, which is hard to match with the decentralized model.

@drdelle @j2bryson The protocol should be open and always available for everyone. Anyone should be able to build new services and invent new sustainable commercial models on it. This way, social will never become a silo again, but the innovation can still flourish and push the ecosystem forward.

Finland has closely watched the Russian troll factory's efforts to create chaos in free democracies. We now educate our children to recognize #misinformation and rank #1 in our ability to resist it.

I wish the Americans would do the same.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/world/europe/finland-misinformation-classes.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuonUktbfqIhkSVUaAybKWsIjolqLmOLI2LF7iH74KCGTRXNHzv8UBYaH4ULEeatkYZ442z2AX9Jadr8zQfg4hsluA3tQcSj66J2VhMZCZCwvtYO4Wm5x1smXBO5nqDKvYjbndKIileKy-huKO2n1UPDY1nZ3JV1np5pkZkjqjSJTvtrNFuF-3dV83f4zVNstFXpbOn7877S_AA5-Od6Hchjf9gE0PupbUj3RltSXgKkSJEQQURmVCSMivhtvrY9UK9gVP6zgLhY_e8eYgrwZDmVgLofBFIS5pvO9ZV-vudr4BKbnXCby