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.
Last edited by scaine on 31 October 2022 at 4:41 pm UTC
Also, if I filter out the Meta tag will I be missing much gaming news?
Quoting: psyminAlso, 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.
Mountain Man Oct 31, 2022
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."
wvstolzing Oct 31, 2022
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.
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.
wvstolzing Oct 31, 2022
Quoting: KithopTo 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.
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