cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/4150119
The assumption is that centrally managed social media is bad because their algorithm is bad. But actually, they are bad because they are centrally managed and force one algorithm onto you. I’m not even advocating algorithm-by-choice. Even instance-specific algorithms would already work and would make the whole experience much more enjoyable and less boring. And if an instance’s algorithm(s) is too aggressive, it gets defederated. That would result in a much more exciting experience imo. And by the way: what’s the problem with getting old posts back in the timeline if it makes the overall conversation more interesting?
I like some ideas, other I don’t.
For me, this sounds like solutinism. Its a societal problem/problem by the network, which (imo) needs to be solved by the network primarily (if it is even a problem). You just want to solve it with an algorithm that evens out political differences and the flaws of our brain? The question is who is implementing this algorithm then. This would be a question for any algorithm and its a debate that should defintely included in the debate around algorithms but I think overuse is dangerous as well as giving too much responsibility to the algorithm where it doesn’t necessarily belong.
If say, christians want to start a sub-feed here and are continously attacked and made fun of, that’s primarily a problem of the network and the moderators and the moderation tools of that specific instance and shouldn’t be tried to be solved with an algorithm.
However, if we are speaking about implementing algorithms in the fediverse, it would definitely worth to consider whether they help some political views or what their effects on the network are in general. And I think it good be a valid point that while chronological order is easy to implement, to understand and fair, it could have some negative networking effects as well like you described.
So basically, I think its an interesting point and I would even go as far as agreeing with you with the remark that it would be kept an eye on not putting too much faith in the algorithm and giving the problem at the end of the day to the community. The algorithm should be politically neutral, encourage the discovery of new content and be welcoming to new users. I agree that especially the second one is a central problem of the fediverse, the third one kind of, and the first one will need to be kept when trying to achieve the others. A balance between these factors would be for me the ideal algorithm, but if you give the possibilitiy of implementing algorithms to the admins (which I would think would be good) it would be a matter of the communities discussion and the overall fediverse, which I think would only be sensible.
Maybe this is also something that the Fediverse just isn’t ready for yet. But it will definitely become a more pressing issue at some point in the future. If the Fediverse wants to be a place for relevant debate, the chronical feed will need to be replaced with something better.
The algorithm should also somehow prioritize posts for you to encourage interaction, because else as you pointed out, the will reduce your amount of acounts you follow, which shouldn’t be the case AND else you also have a dead timeline, where no post has any comments, which I have often enough on Mastodon