There were a lot of people on Mastodon doubting federation would happen (despite a lot of incentives for Meta to federate), but this is a very definitive statement.
Maybe this is the kind of question that only someone who is computer illiterate would ask, but...
Since #Mastodon is #AdFree and #Threads is manipulated by an advertiser-driven #algorithm, how (if at all) do you foresee ads from those other platforms showing up on Mastodon and/or the algorithms of the advertiser platforms affecting feed in the #Fediverse at large?
@AnneTheWriter1 Mastodon is not AdFree.
Advertisers are free to broadcast ads into the system to show up into your feed.
That the algorithm (yes, there is an algorithm) may be purely chronological means there's even less to stop them from putting ads in your face.
Source please?
I've been here over a year and I have yet to see even a single advertisement.
@AnneTheWriter1 well it's in the basic design of federation, where the focus on instances over users means that instances are free to broadcast whatever content they want into other instances' incoming streams.
If I'm an advertiser and I set up on one instance to start spamming ads to others, there's nothing you or your instance can do to force my instance to either delete my account or punish me for it.
It's just the way Mastodon/fediverse is organized, with independent instances setting their own rules.
@AnneTheWriter1 as you say, instances can and do impose blocks, which I think is really important, as it shows that often it's not users but instances curating feeds.
I WISH it was users curating their feeds, but so far that's not been a priority on this platform.
So far users don't have nearly as much control over their feeds as I wish they had.
@volkris
Yes, but other instances can and do block any such spammers. So it's basically ad-free.
And my other point stands: We do not have any artificial algorithms that send trolls and anger-baiting at users, merely to increase screen time and ad revenue. Users curate their own feed. They choose what content they wish to see more of, and don't get irrelevant feed or unwanted bots pushed on them by some data-tracking software.