There has been a huge influx of Indian users and numbers are continuously increasing. Subsequently, it is also giving rise to the plethora of political posts. My question is, won't this platform turn into another Birdsite in this way? And if not, then why or how not?
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@shibaprasad Are you asking about QOTO or the fediverse as a whole.
The fediverse as a whole has lots of interests and politics is among them.
At QOTO we are STEM based but not topic-enforced. So our users sometimes discuss politics like anyone else might. But generally in the past it wasnt really the most popular topic except when a significant political event takes place.
Based on past influxes (this is far from the first) we will see the political talk die down in about a week and go back to the usual topics we see (personal updates, and a lot of STEM stuff).
Basically people who post **only** or mostly politicial stuff just dont get many followers over time. So usually after a week or so they disapear to another server or just stop talking politics and move on to more interesting topics.
I'd say give it 2 weeks and should be back to normal around here with a few new faces.
@freemo I was talking about the Mastodon as whole and then QOTO.
Yeah it should cool down in 2 weeks.
@shibaprasad I have nothing against political posts .. nice thing about any social media is that YOU choose what you want to see, whom you want to follow ... and i hope mastodon will not be taken over by the leftist-jihadi cabal that has taken over Twitter ... in fact the federated structure could be a guard against that
Sadly the fediverse like anywhere else has plenty of extremists, both left and right wing extremists. However thankfully due to the federated structure, as you said, that sort of protects you.
We are a STEM instance so generally we dont have many extremists locally, they all tend to be on other servers. But that makes them easy to block as you can block an entire server from your account not just people.
@yantrajaal TBH I have seen more and more 'RW Ultra Nationalist' on Twitter than 'LW-Jihadi'. I think it boils down to the fact, as you've said: "You chose what you want to see".
@shibaprasad for good or for worse, i am an out and out Modi Bhakt and I love his actions on 370, TT and now Ram Mandir :-) cannot tolerate the JNU and (non STEM) JU crowd ..
@shibaprasad Politics is going to be discussed anywhere that isn't heavily moderated, to at least some extent, because it's something that impacts a lot of lives.
The fediverse will avoid being like the popular comparison by virtue of not being a single, rubbish piece of software, and not being centrally moderated.
@Zergling_man I am not against discussing Political posts per se. You can't stay 'apolitical' in this world. Politics is a part of our lives, whether we like it or not.
I was just being more concerned whether the useless trolls will takeover this platform too.
@shibaprasad Oh, that happened ages ago. Then their instances got blocked. So now I read instance block lists to find lawless places to shitpost.
@shibaprasad There is a risk, although the fediverse has the advantage you can chose to be in a more sheltered, more actively moderated place and not exposed to any random insult from barbarians like in twitter.
However, there are yucky people in different instances too, and you might see their content in the "federated" feed.
I was dismayed to see a mirror bot with all the posts from the current US president. Woot.
Still, much nicer and civilized here. I like that communities are smaller and it's easier to get to know someone too.
One good thing is in QOTO instance, the number of political posts have been very very little. And I am really liking it!