I think norms used to be stricter in at least some parts of the ’net, e.g. if someone had a blog read mostly by their 10 friends, it might have been relying on a form of security by obscurity and it was considered poor form to link to it in a more public context. I think there was also a period when Tumblr was considered a more private platform for posting stuff than more “official” social medias were, and linking to people’s Tumblr posts was frowned upon (at least in some circles).
I think these norms have lost favor over time, but with something as amorphous as social norms it’s impossible to know. I can only tell for sure that I don’t see those norms very much anymore in the kinds of online circles that I frequent. Possibly there are still large subcultures that do hold onto these norms, and maybe that Mastodon admin belongs to one of those subcultures.
if someone had a blog read mostly by their 10 friends, it might have been relying on a form of security by obscurity and it was considered poor form to link to it in a more public context
That would make sense, but then why would you have a ‘boost’ (‘retweet’/‘reblog’) button?
The way I understood the norm on Tumblr, signal-boosting within Tumblr was usually fine (unless the post specifically said “do not reblog” on it or something like that), but signal-boosting to other non-Tumblr communities was bad. The idea was that Tumblr users had a shared vibe/culture/stigma that wasn’t shared by the wider world, so it was important to keep things in the sin pit where normal people wouldn’t encounter them and react badly.
Skimming the home invasion post it seems like the author feels similarly: Mastodon has a particular culture, created by the kind of people who’d seek it out, and they don’t want to have to interact with people who haven’t acclimated to that culture.
Interesting; that isn’t something I knew about Tumblr. This is especially surprising given how often I see screenshots of Tumblr discussions shared on FB, like the post I responded to here.
AIUI it was a feature of early Tumblr culture, which lingered to various degrees in various subcommunities as the site grew more popular. The porn ban in late 2018 also seemed to open things up a lot, even for people who weren’t posting porn; I don’t know why.
Before November 2022 Mastodon users used to joke that you’d “gone viral” if you got more than 5 boost or likes on a post. In an average week, perhaps one or two people might follow my account. Often nobody did. My post was now getting hundreds of interactions. Thousands.
So while the ability to boost the post an indefinite amount was technically there, in practice it wasn’t used very much, and even a boosted post would still stay within a relatively small circle of users.
I once read an essay—that I now can’t find—touching upon similar topics, where the author made the comparison to real-life public spaces. They were saying that yes, in principle everything you do in a public space can be witnessed by anyone, but people still have reasonable expectations about what will happen in practice. If you go out on a walk in the forest behind your house wearing a silly hat, you have the reasonable expectation that either nobody will see it or the only people who see it won’t broadcast it to the whole world. (Admittedly this expectation might have slightly faded with ubiquitous phone cameras.) Or alternatively, while it’s technically possible to run into your ex in any public space, you still have the reasonable expectation that you probably won’t run into them in your neighboring restaurant. Or that if you go to that restaurant, none of the other patrons will call your ex to let them know that you’re there.
People have these kinds of expectations of what their risk level in various public spaces is—separate from what’s technically possible—mediated in part due to various social norms, and get upset if those expectations are violated.
I think norms used to be stricter in at least some parts of the ’net, e.g. if someone had a blog read mostly by their 10 friends, it might have been relying on a form of security by obscurity and it was considered poor form to link to it in a more public context. I think there was also a period when Tumblr was considered a more private platform for posting stuff than more “official” social medias were, and linking to people’s Tumblr posts was frowned upon (at least in some circles).
I think these norms have lost favor over time, but with something as amorphous as social norms it’s impossible to know. I can only tell for sure that I don’t see those norms very much anymore in the kinds of online circles that I frequent. Possibly there are still large subcultures that do hold onto these norms, and maybe that Mastodon admin belongs to one of those subcultures.
That would make sense, but then why would you have a ‘boost’ (‘retweet’/‘reblog’) button?
The way I understood the norm on Tumblr, signal-boosting within Tumblr was usually fine (unless the post specifically said “do not reblog” on it or something like that), but signal-boosting to other non-Tumblr communities was bad. The idea was that Tumblr users had a shared vibe/culture/stigma that wasn’t shared by the wider world, so it was important to keep things in the sin pit where normal people wouldn’t encounter them and react badly.
Skimming the home invasion post it seems like the author feels similarly: Mastodon has a particular culture, created by the kind of people who’d seek it out, and they don’t want to have to interact with people who haven’t acclimated to that culture.
Interesting; that isn’t something I knew about Tumblr. This is especially surprising given how often I see screenshots of Tumblr discussions shared on FB, like the post I responded to here.
(I really don’t like share-by-screenshot culture)
AIUI it was a feature of early Tumblr culture, which lingered to various degrees in various subcommunities as the site grew more popular. The porn ban in late 2018 also seemed to open things up a lot, even for people who weren’t posting porn; I don’t know why.
I feel like the linked blog post answers that:
So while the ability to boost the post an indefinite amount was technically there, in practice it wasn’t used very much, and even a boosted post would still stay within a relatively small circle of users.
I once read an essay—that I now can’t find—touching upon similar topics, where the author made the comparison to real-life public spaces. They were saying that yes, in principle everything you do in a public space can be witnessed by anyone, but people still have reasonable expectations about what will happen in practice. If you go out on a walk in the forest behind your house wearing a silly hat, you have the reasonable expectation that either nobody will see it or the only people who see it won’t broadcast it to the whole world. (Admittedly this expectation might have slightly faded with ubiquitous phone cameras.) Or alternatively, while it’s technically possible to run into your ex in any public space, you still have the reasonable expectation that you probably won’t run into them in your neighboring restaurant. Or that if you go to that restaurant, none of the other patrons will call your ex to let them know that you’re there.
People have these kinds of expectations of what their risk level in various public spaces is—separate from what’s technically possible—mediated in part due to various social norms, and get upset if those expectations are violated.