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Returning to the fediverse is hard. (piefed.world)
submitted 3 weeks ago* by to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
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With Reddit just announcing ai mods for sub reddits I think it’s finally time I fully give it up. I’ve been slowly trying to transition back into the fediverse but damn is it hard sometimes. Listen I have left leaning politics but does every other post have to be about some political shit on the all tab, I feel like I’m forced into this box that is my subscribed feed or I have to actively search out new communities because all is just a political circle jerk that I don’t care about. Not to mention the moment I came back I saw a fucking flow chart on the instances drama of the week. If I wasn’t so dedicated to dropping Reddit I think the average Joe would have left by now seeing all of this. And YES I have been trying to be the change I want to see if you check my profile I regularly post in meme subs non political just funny memes to be like “lmao” and people can move about their day. I’m not saying there ISNT other type of content on lemmy or piefed it just feels like the stuff that floats to the top is political

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[–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

Automatic personalized feed curation, imo, would make it better, based on tags added by the author, by the reader, and by automatic classification, which is then weighted against your previous interaction with posts with those tags and explicit user preferences regarding those tags.
In other words, an option for an automatic personalized feed algorithm. But people here (and the devs) are against it because it's a boogeyman.

That said piefed at least lets multiple tags be added to a post where Lemmy doesn't, so that's the minimum bar for something like what I'm describing.

But it's a chicken and egg problem because the tags aren't helpful for manual or automatic curation until more people actually use them accurately. So tldr I don't have a solution.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    It sounds like you might enjoy TikTok. Those Algorithms exist for a reason - they give people what they want. Sometimes they can be overzealous, like you watch just ONE video in YouTube and it starts showing you more like it... but overall people use those platforms because they enjoy what they offer to them.

    And as you say, PieFed takes giant leaps towards offering a user power to find what they want, e.g. in providing hashtags, which of course so few people use since even if they submit a post to a community on PieFed that would support them, if you do that from a Lemmy account, or via a 3rd-party app that does not provide (easy) support for hashtags, then the post will have none.

    The entire Threadiverse is an experiment. To see what people will build, and to see what the community overall will use. It's sad to see it struggling so much but... writing code it turns out is so much easier than engendering consensus among people.

    In the meantime, I now suggest to people that they not rely upon the Threadiverse and especially Lemmy as their sole source of social media. The tools are still being built, and even then something like 99% of what is already available is simply not being used, and the primary thing is Content - or you might argue rather interactions with people - both of which are fairly lacking here. e.g. so many major events happening irl that I don't even hear about the tiniest bit about here, and many times I have even searched the Threadiverse for keywords after I've learned about the topic elsewhere in case it was here but I simply missed it, only to find that as far as the Threadiverse is concerned the topic simply does not exist. Our low number of content creators is simply insufficient to fully replace Reddit or other sources, unless one's goal is simply masturbatory dopamine hits from exclusively looking at memes, or arguing about which facts exist or not (were there any fatalities in the Tiannamen Square Massacre or not?).

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    I do enjoy tiktok, although the longer it exists (and the longer it's under American control) the more I feel the negative effects of "the algorithm" in that it's not just building an echo chamber by accident but it's intentionally showing me or not showing me things for their own gain.

    I want an algorithm, but I don't want an Algorithm ™

    I hope piefed takes off because I like it. But still maybe it's for the best that I use it as an excuse to disconnect completely from social media

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago

    It's dangerous for sure - both collectively (e.g. it has been demonstrated how they can map out military bases and movements following the patterns of when either the or even the surrounding people login, or perhaps do not log in during certain periods of time), and in a sense perhaps individually for people (this is probably most people) who are susceptible to additive behaviors. Although ofc forewarned forearmed and all of that, so just like any source of positive reinforcement (alcohol, drugs, gaming, even unquestionably "healthy" activities such as exercise and working), it needs to be used appropriately i.e. kept in check. "The unexamined life is not worth living", and all that.

    I should note that it was not America that made TikTok that way - at least not directly. That company has always done those activities. Capitalism always sells not what people want but what the company desires to sell them. If we want different - e.g. Loops or like PeetTube and Pixelfed and such - then we have to build it. The code is not simply going to spill out of a random generator and then email itself to us:-) - it requires a staggeringly enormous amount of effort.

    And that is the problem. I, like you and most of us here, want an algorithm that isn't Their Algorithm, but what we end up with instead still ends up being a form of Algorithm, just fueled by upvotes (vulnerable to disinformation) rather than monetary gain.

    And we should all disconnect - I would argue not entirely, but stepping back a bit may do us all a world of good. Spend most time with people irl, spend only a little learning here, and don't neglect other sources that are significantly better as primary or secondary or even tertiary means of getting information. Other than Reddit though, which is where the content creators are, I am not sure more specifically what that may look like but now I know the task ahead of me: to find that.

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