"New Mastodon accounts should be private by default."
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@evan I'm 'somewhat disagree' since this is social media.
However, because the Fediverse can be a diverse place and I can see, based on the purpose of the instance, the admins might want to choose private by default and that is absolutely fine.
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@evan interesting thought experiment as to how to reinvent discovery in that situation. Because it’s dire now and would become even worse, but maybe that forces some creativity around what “social network” even means in the Masto context. Is it less Twitter, more Signal? More webrings2.0?
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@luis_in_brief Mastodon private accounts are discoverable; you can read the profile information and so on. They just a) manually approve followers and b) post followers-only by default.
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BeAware :fediverse:replied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@evan to each their own, but I believe in open communication and anything that goes against that seems antithetical to Fediverse as a whole.
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@evan an account that by default has no content visible to search engines or casual browsers is not discoverable in any meaningful sense. That’s 100% the opposite direction from bsky, which is innovating on how to surface content to newbies w/ starter packs, lists, & filters.
Maybe private is a good direction! Maybe should make a clean break from being a twitter clone. But that’s the implication: “private by default”, when you’re not already market-dominant, is not a *social* network anymore.
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Private accounts are *more* social. They're about connecting with people you know and care about, rather than broadcasting to the aether.
Fewer, deeper connections, and more comfort sharing real details about your real life.
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@evan We already get complaints about needing to opt-in to features people consider essential for a social network, this would confuse people.
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Nik | Klampfradler 🎸🚲replied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
Option 5: "Default should be an instance setting"
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@evan Have you done a poll on if Threads accounts should/should not be federated by default? I feel like that's in the same vein of discussion
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Brooke Vibber :blobcatcoffee:replied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@evan @luis_in_brief *nod* i want social networks where i can communicate with people who have something fun or interesting to say, not social media where i passively ingest what a few celebrities produce en masse.
of course, i'm probably not a very profitable customer for ad-supported networks
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BeAware :fediverse:replied to Tom Casavant last edited by
@tom it would be an irrelevant poll because meta already said they don't plan on ever doing that.️
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@tom I have not!
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Brooke Vibber :blobcatcoffee:replied to Brooke Vibber :blobcatcoffee: last edited by
@evan @luis_in_brief more generally i just think panopticon culture is *really creepy* and i think we need to get out of it, not embed it into our social expectations
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@Gargron Do we know if any other social networks are private by default? I can think of Snap and BeReal, but there are probably others.
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How do you get to know people if it defaults to private? I like the concept of private groups you can join or be invited to, like WhatsApp, Discord (etc) groups for "closed" social circles. When I joined Mastodon I knew nobody. How does one get get know people with private profiles but with whom you might share similar interests?
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Luis Villareplied to Brooke Vibber :blobcatcoffee: last edited by
@brooke @evan I'm mostly agreed philosophically, but from a product-management perspective, but you can't simultaneously build a twitter-style tool and be defacto DM-first. They're just completely different UIs, user expectations, ways of finding your friends, etc. So if Masto wants to build Signal or Discord on top of activitypub, that's fine! But that's an entirely different product than what they're currently building. And sadly there is no sign they understand any of that.
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@tom @evan @Gargron I was going to mention that too. As a response to criticisms from law makers, users who identify themselves as teenagers on IG are now private by default https://www.platformer.news/instagram-teen-accounts-private-default-daily-limit/?ref=butts
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Raphael Lullisreplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
Strongly disagree. It's not real privacy and we should not pretend that anything on a social network is not available. Those that want/need privacy should be instructed to use proper, secure, group communication tools.
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@luis_in_brief @brooke Are you familiar with using friends-only mode in Snap, Instagram, Facebook, or other platforms? It's not SecureDrop. It's just a more pleasant, personal system where you can be more vulnerable.