Just a bit of big industry news to cover today, as an update to the previous article talking about Elon Musk and Twitter — as the sale has completed. Plus a reminder on Mastodon and Nextcloud doing some fun social stuff too.
To get one thing out of the way: no, this is not gaming news, but we've covered big industry stuff for years. In this specific case, we (or should I say I), use Twitter a lot for sharing our news and interacting with people, spreading info about Linux gaming, Steam Deck and more. Follow GOL on Twitter here, our account is not going anywhere anytime soon.
It's certainly going to be interesting to see what happens, with changes already underway. For one, Musk said Twitter is now building up a "content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints" and that the verification process (where you get a blue tick) is also being revamped and they're even reportedly looking at charging people to stay verified.
Seems like a good time to remind people of alternatives, like Mastodon. We're on it too and have been for a long time now, you can follow GOL on Mastodon here. It's a little different to Twitter since it's open source and federated, it works a lot more like email: you sign up anywhere, or host your own, and then chat with everyone.
Linking into that, Nextcloud announced their own "Nextcloud Social" platform which will ship in Nextcloud by default, and it will have support for the the Activity Pub standard and Mastodon directly too. That could be interesting, as they have quite a lot of people using it.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I'm not a Musk fan. I'll be absolutely floored if Twitter is still a platform I want to be on, this time next year. To be honest, it's barely a platform I want to be on now! 
Last edited by scaine on 31 October 2022 at 4:41 pm UTC
Last edited by scaine on 31 October 2022 at 4:41 pm UTC
8 Likes, Who?
Everyone should get on Mastodon or another federated social media system :)
Also, if I filter out the Meta tag will I be missing much gaming news?
Also, if I filter out the Meta tag will I be missing much gaming news?
3 Likes, Who?
Also, if I filter out the Meta tag will I be missing much gaming news?The Meta tag is generally for anything and everything not to do with a specific game, so probably.
0 Likes
Mountain Man Oct 31, 2022
One of Joe Biden's many whoppers has already been flagged with an "additional context" notice. That would have never happened under the previous leadership.
Musk also has access to a trove of internal communications proving that the top executives artificially inflated the number of actual users in order to drive up the price for ads. One of the messages said, "We're doing everything Musk has accused us of doing."
Musk also has access to a trove of internal communications proving that the top executives artificially inflated the number of actual users in order to drive up the price for ads. One of the messages said, "We're doing everything Musk has accused us of doing."
8 Likes, Who?
It's high time to start cleaning up the trash on Twitter. It is amazing how in 2 years it has turned into an instrument of political power with double standards and strict censorship.
19 Likes, Who?
walther von stolzing Oct 31, 2022
Best of luck to the Nextcloud app, though I have to say (& I hate to say it) that one should take 'new feature!!!' announcements from Nextcloud very, very cautiously.
At the very least - don't expect to self-host *and* be able to use any 'new features' before they mature in a couple of years' time. If a paid provider with dedicated staff to fix the constant breakages offers said features, then it's all right of course.
... & I see that nitter.net is down. I hope it's not related to this acquisition. It's a great way of keeping up with twitter feeds from people you like over rss, without even logging in to twitter itself.
At the very least - don't expect to self-host *and* be able to use any 'new features' before they mature in a couple of years' time. If a paid provider with dedicated staff to fix the constant breakages offers said features, then it's all right of course.
... & I see that nitter.net is down. I hope it's not related to this acquisition. It's a great way of keeping up with twitter feeds from people you like over rss, without even logging in to twitter itself.
1 Likes, Who?
Let's be honest, this just means they won't ban as many nazis and dogwhistles will be probably OK there now. On an additional note, the reactionaries are such big fucking snowflakes: even as a non-american it's pretty clear that their propaganda flows freely from all mainstream sources. Censorship, of course... Crybabies...
11 Likes, Who?
Used to use Twitter back when it was all geared around SMS; I remember texting one of their shortcodes back on a Nokia 5190 (ah, the T9 firmware upgrade was huge!).
But when Mastodon came around, it didn't take me long to spin up my own private instance, connect to some relays, and generally start playing around with it in parallel.
It wasn't long before I outright deleted my Twitter account entirely (same for an on-again, off-again relationship with Facebook that started back when you had to have a university e-mail to even be able to sign up).
Honestly, ditching FB & Twitter in favour of the Fediverse (Mastodon & other ActivityPub compatible servers) was one of the best decisions I've ever made for my own mental health. Yeah, you need to end up on a well moderated instance and sometimes you need to report the spam or trolls (or as an admin, ban them yourself), but the quality of discourse is just so much higher when people aren't compelled to perform for some algorithm to get 'visibility' and 'engagement'.
Would I run a brand or business solely on the Fediverse? Probably not - but then you're paying marketing spend to exist on those other platforms anyway; it's not the same kind of experience.
To be able to find small, close knit communities - makers, gamers, artists, musicians, photographers, etc. who can finally afford to drop the 'brand' pretense and be a lot more genuine, to not be abused by a platform's shadowy algorithms, is way more like the Internet I remember, of fan forums and webrings and without draconian advertising and pages that would make any dial up connection cry over their heft.
All that said, it's not for everyone. By the same sort of argument, maybe getting off social media entirely is a better solution for some people. For others, it may be too hard to let go of whatever social and support networks they've built.
But I remember the days of ICQ, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger and MSN, and how all that has since either vanished or at least faded into obscurity. One day these platforms will do the same as we all move on to some other 'next big thing'. Maybe those support networks are worth saving from the inevitable, and now's a good a time as any to consider just how it can be done.
But when Mastodon came around, it didn't take me long to spin up my own private instance, connect to some relays, and generally start playing around with it in parallel.
It wasn't long before I outright deleted my Twitter account entirely (same for an on-again, off-again relationship with Facebook that started back when you had to have a university e-mail to even be able to sign up).
Honestly, ditching FB & Twitter in favour of the Fediverse (Mastodon & other ActivityPub compatible servers) was one of the best decisions I've ever made for my own mental health. Yeah, you need to end up on a well moderated instance and sometimes you need to report the spam or trolls (or as an admin, ban them yourself), but the quality of discourse is just so much higher when people aren't compelled to perform for some algorithm to get 'visibility' and 'engagement'.
Would I run a brand or business solely on the Fediverse? Probably not - but then you're paying marketing spend to exist on those other platforms anyway; it's not the same kind of experience.
To be able to find small, close knit communities - makers, gamers, artists, musicians, photographers, etc. who can finally afford to drop the 'brand' pretense and be a lot more genuine, to not be abused by a platform's shadowy algorithms, is way more like the Internet I remember, of fan forums and webrings and without draconian advertising and pages that would make any dial up connection cry over their heft.
All that said, it's not for everyone. By the same sort of argument, maybe getting off social media entirely is a better solution for some people. For others, it may be too hard to let go of whatever social and support networks they've built.
But I remember the days of ICQ, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger and MSN, and how all that has since either vanished or at least faded into obscurity. One day these platforms will do the same as we all move on to some other 'next big thing'. Maybe those support networks are worth saving from the inevitable, and now's a good a time as any to consider just how it can be done.
7 Likes, Who?
walther von stolzing Oct 31, 2022
This is really well put:
Though I can't get my hopes up about the kind of people I mainly follow - academics - because some of those fellows are all about the 'brand pretense'; and those who aren't are scared of missing out on something important that the other party may say, so they'll stay whereever they are.
To be able to find small, close knit communities - makers, gamers, artists, musicians, photographers, etc. who can finally afford to drop the 'brand' pretense and be a lot more genuine, to not be abused by a platform's shadowy algorithms, is way more like the Internet I remember, of fan forums and webrings and without draconian advertising and pages that would make any dial up connection cry over their heft.
Though I can't get my hopes up about the kind of people I mainly follow - academics - because some of those fellows are all about the 'brand pretense'; and those who aren't are scared of missing out on something important that the other party may say, so they'll stay whereever they are.
0 Likes
Kimyrielle Oct 31, 2022
Just stop using twitter.
It's not that easy, at least not for everyone. If you are a person who has to maintain contact with the general public, you can't just NOT use what is one of the more important channels to reach them. It's like companies can just NOT say no to Facebook for similar reasons.
It's rather yet another example why we need stronger and stricter regulations for organizations like Twitter.
1 Likes, Who?
Mountain Man Oct 31, 2022
Let's be honest, this just means they won't ban as many nazis and dogwhistles will be probably OK there now. On an additional note, the reactionaries are such big fucking snowflakes: even as a non-american it's pretty clear that their propaganda flows freely from all mainstream sources. Censorship, of course... Crybabies...The only difference, I think, will be that the Nazis and dog whistlers won't have a monopoly like they've enjoyed on Twitter for the past several years.
4 Likes, Who?
ElectricPrism Oct 31, 2022
Let's use this opportunity to support Federated platforms.
4 Likes, Who?
Mastodon all the way for me. Nextcloud's take on social is interesting too to say the least, I run a Nextcloud instance for me and my friends on a Pi 400, doubt that thing can handle social at the same time though, haha..
0 Likes
GamingOnLinux should link Twitter in their Mastodon Profile and Mastodon on the Twitter Profile.
There are scrapers that help people to see if their favourite content is available on the other side as well like
https://pruvisto.org/debirdify or https://fedifinder.glitch.me/ .
Tell your friends, adjust your settings.
There are scrapers that help people to see if their favourite content is available on the other side as well like
https://pruvisto.org/debirdify or https://fedifinder.glitch.me/ .
Tell your friends, adjust your settings.
4 Likes, Who?
Arehandoro Oct 31, 2022
Nextcloud is cool, but for people with scarce time, or zero knowledge, or too lazy, etc, they should offer a subscription as a service model (similar to what thegood.cloud does, but with full on functionality for emails, photo AI for organising them, etc). Otherwise, their market share will be still in the niche.
Oh, and instead of releasing their own social network, or their chat, it would be much better for resources and overall usage to implement things like Matrix and Mastodon directly.
EDIT: I see the latter has been done with Mastodon... sort of... with ActivityPub.
Last edited by Arehandoro on 31 October 2022 at 7:48 pm UTC
Oh, and instead of releasing their own social network, or their chat, it would be much better for resources and overall usage to implement things like Matrix and Mastodon directly.
EDIT: I see the latter has been done with Mastodon... sort of... with ActivityPub.
Last edited by Arehandoro on 31 October 2022 at 7:48 pm UTC
2 Likes, Who?
Nateman1000 Oct 31, 2022
The richest man on now has 100% control of the biggest discussion platform ever. Disgusting
Last edited by Nateman1000 on 8 November 2022 at 3:05 pm UTC
Last edited by Nateman1000 on 8 November 2022 at 3:05 pm UTC
1 Likes, Who?
One of Joe Biden's many whoppers has already been flagged with an "additional context" notice. That would have never happened under the previous leadership.
I'm pretty sure our news sources fact checking our presidents has been a thing since at least the late 18th century.
5 Likes, Who?
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