Feral Thoughts

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feralthoughts_at_union.place@momostr.pink

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relay.damus.io

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Last Notes

2025-08-30 23:09:33 UTC

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You may enjoy this blog post "On avid readers and voracious reading"—part personal, part political, part wandering thoughts on what makes a reader!
https://feralferment.blogspot.com/2025/08/on-avid-readers-and-voracious-reading.html
@npub1ny7…uv57
#reading #ReadingCommunity #books #bookstodon #booktodon

2025-04-05 20:37:47 UTC

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The invisiblization of the global south on Mastodon, and on the rest of the Fediverse, is a huge issue.
https://union.place/@feralthoughts/114030586394502623

2025-03-30 17:49:54 UTC

"Anti-genocide activists exposed by pro-Israel groups using facial recognition tech
Washington has revoked hundreds of student visas in recent weeks as part of a crackdown on foreign university students who oppose the mass killing of Palestinians by Israel"
The Cradle
March 29, 2025
https://thecradle.co/articles/anti-genocide-activists-exposed-by-pro-israel-groups-using-facial-recognition-tech
#USA #fascism #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #FacialRecognition #Israel #Palestine #genocide #holocaust #colonialism #imperialism #capitalism

2025-03-02 15:12:10 UTC

Western #imperialism comes in two flavours—#liberal and #conservative.
#Mastodon, and the rest of the #Fediverse, love imperialism in "liberal" flavour.
Donald Trump supplies only the "conservative" flavour of imperialism. He is also trying to shut down production of the "liberal" flavour.
Now you know why the Fedi hates Trump.

2025-02-19 16:11:13 UTC

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That's a different problem, no? That on Mastodon, two users may (not) see different parts of a conversation, because Mastodon treats each reply as an independent post?
Facebook, Hubzilla etc. handle this much better - similar to a blog, everything below the original post is a comment, not a reply, and the OP can delete unwanted comments. Didn't know Mastodon is planning to shift to that model; good, if true.
In any case, it won't solve the discoverability problem, as you said.

2025-02-19 15:48:42 UTC

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That's great to know.
I wonder why the search/discovery is so bad. I know of several (public) users/posts that could not be found even in a search on mastodon.social, which is THE biggest instance.
I assume that for a variety of reasons, a large number of servers are simply not being indexed by the existing relays.

2025-02-19 13:19:24 UTC

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_North_and_Global_South

2025-02-19 12:43:27 UTC

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As a direct consequence, the majority of #GlobalSouth users who drift into the #Fediverse get disillusioned, and return/move on to #Facebook or #Twitter or #Threads.
The #GlobalNorth users on the Fediverse never even become aware of this loss; though many of them perceive the monotony of voices/topics, and silently move out; leaving behind a tiny, malnourished social medium.

2025-02-19 12:42:22 UTC

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That’s it, that’s the mechanism.
Forget #GlobalNorth users, even #GlobalSouth users cannot find fellow users from their regions, or find posts about the global south, even if both exist.
This happens with most global south users, and with an overwhelming majority of the posts on global south topics.
That’s how #Mastodon, and the rest of the #Fediverse, invisiblize the global south.
(continues)

2025-02-19 12:41:42 UTC

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So the user X in the above example could be any account focussed on #GlobalSouth topics. Replace #Namibia with any other country or topic concerning the global south.
The dynamic described above will play out in all these cases.
(continues)

2025-02-19 12:41:23 UTC

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An overwhelming majority of #GlobalNorth users have no interest in #GlobalSouth topics. They neither follow users focussed on global south issues, nor boost or like posts on global south topics.
That’s their prerogative, of course; but that is also the root cause underlying the above dynamic. There is no obvious resolution to it, at least not within the narrow confines of the #Fediverse.
(continues)

2025-02-19 12:40:44 UTC

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Generalize mastodon.social in the above example to all mainstream, primarily #GlobalNorth, #Mastodon servers. No user on any of those servers will ever become aware of user X’s post containing #Namibia, even if some of them consciously search for the term.
(continues)

2025-02-19 12:39:43 UTC

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A relay may complicate the above picture slightly. But if server Y in the above example is an isolated #GlobalSouth instance, or if it is running software (such as Hubzilla) not based on #ActivityPub, then the relay will most likely not be pulling posts from there, so the example will still hold.
In this context, remember many instances do not add relays because the additional posts pulled in through the relay increase the storage and processing costs.
(continues)

2025-02-19 12:39:04 UTC

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Say there is a user X on random server Y. Assume that no user on mastodon.social (for example) follows user X. Assume that users on mastodon.social follow other users on server Y. Assume further that neither server has blocked the other.
User X writes a post containing the term, say, #Namibia. The post receives no reply, no boost, no like.
Later, someone searches for #Namibia on mastodon.social. The search results will NOT include user X’s post containing the term #Namibia.
(continues)

2025-02-19 12:37:44 UTC

🧵 on how #Mastodon, and the rest of the #Fediverse, invisiblize the #GlobalSouth.
I have argued a few times that for all practical purposes, the global south does not exist for Mastodon, and for the rest of the Fediverse. But many people I interact with do not quite understand how this works in practice.
This series of posts is an effort to illustrate that mechanism.
(continues)