An interesting review of Google+ alternative social media sites Mastadon, MeWe, Minds, GAB and Vero with screen...
An interesting review of Google+ alternative social media sites Mastadon, MeWe, Minds, GAB and Vero with screen shots.
October 29, 2018
https://reason.com/blog/2018/10/29/ready-to-get-off-facebook-reason-reviews
#GooglePlusMigration #GooglePlus #socialMediaSites #Mastadon #MeWE #Minds #GAB #Vero
https://reason.com/blog/2018/10/29/ready-to-get-off-facebook-reason-reviews
October 29, 2018
https://reason.com/blog/2018/10/29/ready-to-get-off-facebook-reason-reviews
#GooglePlusMigration #GooglePlus #socialMediaSites #Mastadon #MeWE #Minds #GAB #Vero
https://reason.com/blog/2018/10/29/ready-to-get-off-facebook-reason-reviews
Thanks. This confirms my worst informed suspicious about several of these sites. I know the Reason blog and its backers well, and I won't be joining up with any network they give high marks to, especially not in these terrible times. It was, however, good to learn that gab has been taken offline, given this terrible week's news in the US. And I have zero interest in any site based on cryptocurrency.
ReplyDeletePat Kight I'm sorry you feel that way, Pat, because whatever censoring/punishment that is done to GAB or any other free speech site can be done to whatever site you eventually find yourself on if one user steps out of line.
ReplyDeleteA social media site is a service. If a bomb maker calls in a threat to a school on Verizon, should Verizon be taken down? That logic makes no sense, nor will it ever stop evil. Evil doers will find some other way. But innocent people will suffer without service. What if an innocent person needed to use GAB to communicate their location to a family member on GAB and then it was suddenly taken down because other service providers wanted to punish GAB for what one user did? It's not fair and it serves no purpose.
Some Minds users ignore the crypto currency aspect. You don’t spend any money. There is no cost. You don't have to do anything with it. Crypto currency shows up in your wallet as you earn them for just interacting on the Minds site. It is your choice to use them or not. I send them to users who have great content as an acknowledgement of their work. If I love a post, I'll boost it to more frequent views using one credit of crypto currency. It's fun and it's nice when someone acknowledges a post.
Free speech social media site services don't mandate you expose yourself to any content you don't want to see. That's what blocking is for. You have free will. I don't usually engage in politics on Minds unless I feel like it that day. The few times I do, I have been treated with respect or received no response. I haven't been in one single argument...I think because the people using the Minds service respect and value free speech.
Free speech social media sites are, however, an opportunity to discuss various viewpoints and expose oneself to a variety of information sources. The only people who would not be comfortable on a free speech social media site are group thinkers who don't or won't deviate from the group ideology, who support censorship of any speech that does not agree with their ideology, and who are not interested in what anyone else has to say or the reasons for their viewpoints.
Having joined MANY social media sites in the past couple of weeks, I have a hypothesis: The better a site is at helping users find content, the more attractive it will be to refugees. The worse it is at helping users find content, the more appealing it will be to those we refer to around here as "nutcases". The individuals who we are most inclined to censor - they know who they are. They do not seek out places where their speech is easily discovered.
ReplyDeleteThe flip side of this is censorship of commentary on one's own posts. Some of these sites, in the name of free speech (and perhaps in the name of expediency), do not provide means for a poster to block others, or removing comments on posts. What shall be the individual's rights to control their discussion space? If you and I want to talk about flowers in a public venue, and we are being pestered by someone who wants to talk about trees instead; must we make our flower discussion private so tree guy can't see it anymore, or can we erect a barrier to prevent tree guy from participating, or must we accommodate tree guy's input? All of these models are in play. Only the "erect a barrier" option seems to make any sense.
After reading through the article, I think I'll stay on Diaspora* ...
ReplyDeleteYes, there're also alt-rights, but they were on Google+ too, and Diaspora* let's you block users and moderate your comments.
Diaspora* kind of feels like Google+ before Communities and Circles, and it's actually quite fun! (Pat Kight)
ReplyDeleteChallenges with Minds network
• As you know Minds software is available in either decentralized or centralized options. Meaning its source code is available publicly for reviews and contributions. But is Minds software presently able to be both distributed and federated? I searched but I have not yet found a clear answer to that question. My instinct tells me the future is with those two combined network methods.
quora.com - Is Minds.com a viable, alternative, social media, as of 2017?
Hi Kathie Gifford - I think you're overdoing the censorship thing here. It's perfectly normal to select friends and venues based on taste and preference, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteIf a bar is full of Nazis, I won't go in.
If friends turn alt-right, I drop them.
So, why should I select a server or service that's known to cater to the right? And give my time, my content, my attention to something I loathe?
Christian Frank It doesn't even matter. These social networks beyond Google or Facebook, don't own their own bandwidth. Become a pest to the upstream, they lean on the hosts, and the hosts can scream all they want, but in business the bottom line matters. The upstream providers can afford losing mid-tier operators, as they own the pipe(s) of MANY MORE businesses. Losing these smaller social networks is a drop in the bucket.
ReplyDeleteReally was spoiled on G+.
Kevyne Kicklighter
ReplyDelete>..."social networks beyond Google or Facebook, don't own their own bandwidth"
Are you sure? What about Yahoo? I forget which network they own. (Needless to say I am very confused by this entire business.) For all I know, maybe Yahoo has been gobbled by another company by now!
you are correct Jeff Diver, Verizon ate Yahoo.
ReplyDeleteJeff Diver Yahoo's assets were bought out by Verizon which like Comcast, they own their own networks. So Yahoo doesn't own their own pipes but rent it (Yahoo was a carrier, not a network). Interestingly, Comcast doesn't own the cell towers for it's cell service, either. It rents access from Verizon's cell network (it wants it's own cell service, but anti-monopoly rules from Ma Bell days apply).
ReplyDeleteCogent and Level3 networks are an example of bandwidth providers (upstream).
So, the battle royale is with the upstream providers. They "run" the internet (and the "clouds" and CDN routes).
Why Google and G+ was sooooo nice. No one higher upstream than them and only the State could dictate to them. All these other social networks, still have to answer to the upstream providers.
arstechnica.com - When slow downloads hit an app developer, only Comcast customers suffered
And it takes SERIOUS capital to build your own network, too.
ReplyDelete"The management software Netflix runs on Amazon Web Services handles distribution of content, analyzes network performance, and connects users to the proper video sources. Netflix wrote its own adaptive bitrate algorithms to react to changes in throughput, and a CDN selection algorithm to adapt to changing network conditions such as overloaded links, overloaded servers, and errors, the company said."
What's under the hood for networking, is an UGLY mess of technologies. I can't stress enough why G+ was so nice.
When Russia did some type of ban with AWS earlier this year, all those Russian gamers got cut off of Steam publishers who used AWS (it's a sweet network but ungodly expensive!). Game companies using AWS had to find other CDN routes.
People just don't understand, what they get at the front door isn't a network operation. G+ was, with all of Google's backbone infrastructure, too.
arstechnica.com - Netflix’s many-pronged plan to eliminate video playback problems
Kevyne Kicklighter I'm jumping to conclusions here. What I'm taking away is that it is "better" for me to stick with a company that owns its own bandwidth. Apparently, then, my only choice other than Google is Facebook. However, there are all sorts of G+ users whose sentiment is whoa! Anything but Facebook!
ReplyDeleteHelp! What to do?
Jeff Diver Not much folks can do about it in the foreseeable future. Just like most of the USA is stuck with Comcast. Not enough competition to drive the prices down and expand coverage.
ReplyDeleteEvery option is either use Facebook or a mid-tier social media carrier, that answers to another upstream network.
If G+ would've stayed there was another social media option that only needed to answer to the State.
I woke up from a dream today, that G+ had a political neutrality slider option on it's posts (instead of thumbs up or thumbs down -- that way people can use that as a gauge of political commentary). Woke up thinking, "Why would G+ have that if it was shutting down?"
Kevyne Kicklighter (sigh!) Looks like I'll be learning how to use Facebook in concert with one or more of the mid-tier social media carriers.
ReplyDelete