Notices by switching.social (switchingsocial@mastodon.at), page 64

@js0000 @news

Did you press "save" at the bottom of the screen after unchecking it?

Do you enjoy following someone's own posts, but they boost a lot of stuff you don't care about?

Did you know you can just mute their boosts without muting their posts?

1. Go to their profile page

2. Click on the menu button (the three dots in a column)

3. Click on "Hide boosts from..."

(Note: this only works with Mastodon accounts.)

#MastoTips #Mastodon

@Nachbarschaft @tobi

Switching.social is aimed at end users, not website admins. Lookign for webhosters is way too much work, way too tricky, way too techy.

Most people don't want to run a site, they just want to sign up on other people's sites. Managed hosting is a nice mixture of these two things, that's why I mention it too.

Hubzilla is too complex for switching.social, I'm sorry.

@Nachbarschaft @tobi

Switching.social is aimed at end users, not website admins.

Most people don't want to run a site, they just want to sign up on other people's sites.

@Nachbarschaft @tobi

Symmetrical transparency is great because it lets people weigh up relative risk. I agree that would be best to aim for, but it won't happen because centralised services won't play along.

Asymmetrical transparency can be terrible, because it can give completely the wrong impression and make much lower risks seem like much higher risks.

@Nachbarschaft @tobi

I do tell them, but it has to be managed hosting (like masto.host).

@Nachbarschaft @tobi

If we cover the Fediverse in health warnings while centralised services have no warnings at all, people will start to think the Fediverse is riskier.

Those people would be drawing the wrong conclusion, but it's the conclusion they are likely to draw.

Humans just aren't very good at assessing risk in things they don't know about.

Warnings scare people off, lack of warnings reassure them, despite the worst dangers often having no warnings at all.

@Nachbarschaft @tobi

If we cover the Fediverse in health warnings while centralised services have no warnings at all, people will start to think the Fediverse is riskier.

It's the wrong conclusion to draw, but it's how humans tend to assess risk when faced with assymetrical health warnings.

@Nachbarschaft @tobi

If you imagine an apple and a chocolate bar, the apple is clearly healthier by every scientific measure.

No food is risk-free, so in theory you should cover the apple in health warnings.

But if the apple came covered in health warnings and the chocolate bar didn't, people would start to think the chocolate bar was healthier.

That, combined with the chocolate bar's sugar hit, would make people abandon the apples altogether.

@Nachbarschaft @tobi

Put it this way: when people sign up to Facebook or Twitter, there is *zero* discussion of the risks.

If the Fediverse has extremely detailed discussion of the risks, people may wrongly believe that the Fediverse is much more risky.

I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about risks at all.

But if we talk about risks in great detail, people will go back to centralised (and much higher risk) platforms, because they don't mention risks at all.

@Nachbarschaft @tobi

Brilliant! Good luck to your version, this kind of diversity is great to see 👍

@jwinnie @dorinchiritoiu @robjloranger

That's the theory, but as Chrome shows the theory doesn't always work.

And a business model that removes other people's ads and replaces them with their own ads is clearly unethical.

It's also very suspicious the way they're pouring money into giving Brave users free subscriptions to premium content. That content would not be available on any fork.

This just does not smell right, it is so far removed from an open project.

@Nachbarschaft @tobi

It is not about the words but about the level of interest. People who have no interest in technology will not see such essays as nuanced discussions but as lists of warning signs. They may wonder why they are even trying the fediverse when it is so full of risks.

By the way, as far as I know there are no managed hosting services for Friendica?

Non-managed hosting is *way* beyond the scope of switching.social, it requires far too much technical knowledge.

@fedilab

I don't know if this is exactly what you want, but Vidcommons has some good documentaries:

@documentaries

https://vidcommons.org/

@fedilab

I don't know if this is exactly what you want, but Vidcommons has some good documentaries:

https://vidcommons.org/

@jwinnie @dorinchiritoiu @robjloranger

...it's optional until it isn't.

Chrome used to let you block ads but now Google is taking that option away.

There just isn't the basis to trust Brave: they have the wrong owners, the wrong corporate structure and the wrong business model.

@jwinnie @dorinchiritoiu @robjloranger

I'd say using software from a company based around replacing other people's ads with their own is pretty dodgy.

Brave's ownership by Thiel makes it even more dodgy.

VC funds don't give money to projects for fun, they do it purely for profit. They expect a return on their money, and people like Thiel don't have any problem breaking promises about privacy.

@evergreen @Antanicus @paulfree14 @PINE64 @ZacharyHerold

I think there's been a misunderstanding?

This is a thread about Pine 64 now being on the Fediverse.

They specialise in open hardware, so by definition they would be trying to give as much control as possible to the end user.

@evergreen @Antanicus @paulfree14 @PINE64 @ZacharyHerold

Once hardware is sold, especially libre hardware where user restriction is deliberately kept to a minimum, the hardware manufacturer no longer has control over it.

But hardware makers *do* control things like components/materials, operating systems etc, and this is where any ethics focus should be for them.

For social media companies, the focus is different because the range of control is different.