Yeah, mastodon definitely needs a better algorithm. Algorithms can be designed to promote whatever the maker wants. It doesn’t have to be designed to maximize engagement or the specific kind of engagement that tends to promote crazy conspiracy theories or fascist rhetoric. The algorithm could just be simple collaborative filtering with some randomness thrown in to pop “information bubbles,” which would be much better than what they have now.

If I use a private window, and don’t log in I get a lot of right-wing stuff. I’ve noticed it probably depends on IP/location as well. If at work, youtube seems recommend me things other people at the office listen to.

If I’m logged in, I only get occasional right-wing recommendations interspersed with the left-wing stuff I typically like. About 1/20 videos are right-wing.

YouTube Shorts is different. It’s almost all thirst-traps and right-wing, hustle culture stuff for me.

It could also be because a lot of the people who watch the same videos you do tend to also watch right-wing stuff.

In general, the algorithm tries to boost the stuff that maximizes “engagement,” which is usually outrage-type stuff.

It’s just torture-porn primarily featuring things like rape, pedophilia, etc. The most disgusting movie I’ve ever seen. Plot is contrived, and just serves as a vehicle to deliver the most disgusting scenes of sexual violence they could think of. Acting is OK I guess. It seems like a fairly high-budget movie.

A Serbian Film

Threads doesn’t need to do an EEE attack. They’ve already gained many more users than the entire Fediverse. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if they decided to not join the Fediverse at all.

I would never use Threads, but I would use a Mastodon instance that federated with Threads. I already see many journalists and content creators I like trying it out, who either stopped using Mastadon long ago or never even tried it in the first place. If Threads started doing things that negatively affected my experience, I would then switch to a Mastodon instance that wasn’t federated with Threads.