Skip to main content
My response rates for polls on Twitter were 1-2%.

On Mastodon, it's 15-20%.

Twitter and Facebook throttle our natural engagement with our friends and family and colleagues.

They do it so brands will buy ads to reach people who already follow them.

I didn't realise how pronounced the effect is.

I'm angry.

For years, my connection with the people I care about has been diminished, intentionally, to support a losing advertising scheme.

I want that time with my friends and family back.
Adam Dalliance
Adam Dalliance  
•
exactly. The algorithm focusses all attention on the few, stealing it from the many.

Spread it around more!
William Heber Percy
William Heber Percy  
•
what do you do with your poll results, apart from sharing them here?
Evan Prodromou
Evan Prodromou  
•
@wilpercy I learn from them and think hard about them. I don't really have a lot of other things to do with them.
@William Heber Percy
William Heber Percy
William Heber Percy  
•
then I will endeavor to answer more of them.
John Allsopp
John Allsopp  
•
this is my early experience too. Plus the engagement just feels more pleasant overall? Long may that last.
Jon Udell
Jon Udell  
•
We were the proverbial frogs in slowly-boiling water.
Evan Prodromou
Evan Prodromou  
•
@judell I just wish I'd known how great it could be.
@Jon Udell
Jon Udell
Jon Udell  
•
When the blogosphere was booting up 20 years ago it felt a lot like this. So I remember what great could be, and am delighted to experience it again!
moliver
moliver  
•
It would be bad enough if the only way social media has used their algorithms was for ads. Facebook was caught performing psychological experiments on users in an attempt to manipulate their emotional states.

https://www.newsweek.com/facebook-performed-psychology-experiment-thousands-users-without-telling-them-256914

Facebook Performed a Psychology Experiment on Thousands of Users Without Telling Them

Nearly 700,000 Facebook users became guinea pigs for a study on "emotional contagion"
Zach Schonfeld (Newsweek)
🇺🇦 Sean Prophet ⚛
🇺🇦 Sean Prophet ⚛  
•
If you're mad about that, it's even worse for pages. I worked really hard for years to build up 3K followers on my political podcast page. When I post something there without boosting it, it might get about 10 engagements and one or two likes. A friend of mine who has 120K followers on his science page only gets slightly more unless he pays.

Facebook is a huge scam.

I used to get reasonable engagement on my personal page, but now even that's down to one or two engagements if I have any article linked. The only thing that still gets a normal amount of engagement are photos and text posts. Even though I have over 2,000 friends, I've never gotten over a hundred reactions on any post.

My first week on Mastodon, I had something go viral with 5K engagements.
textcontainer
textcontainer  
•
@forschungstorte This! And I would already be relieved if the friends who can't break away from Twitter realise that and start pushing alternative networking here.
@forschungstorte
Jyoti Mishra
Jyoti Mishra  
•
Anecdotally my exact experience too. In the other place, I may as well be screaming into vacuum.

Here, way higher interaction and way more informed answers.
James M.
James M.  
•
yep. I've heard that on FB, posts go to only 5-10% of a page's followers, which is in line with your numbers. I know that many content creators there are super frustrated about this.

I'm trying to convince those I follow on FB to bring their writing here, but that won't work for long-form writers (e.g. Rebecca Solnit, Heather Cox Richardson, Rob Brezsny, etc.). I know there are pros and cons to longer max post lengths here, but is there a solution for them other than linking to blogs?
James M.
James M.  
•
and yes, absolutely, the commercial platforms are altering and diluting our personal relationships in many ways. I'm mad about it too.
Andrew
Andrew  
•
Im curious how you're measuring response rate on mastodon
Evan Prodromou
Evan Prodromou  
•
@cinebox I count the number of responses and divide by my number of followers.
@Andrew
Andrés
Andrés  
•
Do you feel you have a lot of robot followers on Twitter? Given that you are one of people that spearheaded fediverse , would you not expect more from here?

@cinebox
@Andrew
bazkie bumpercar | unfluencer
bazkie bumpercar | unfluencer  
•
yep if the #1 incentive for a company is money, the human part of the equation is always going to suffer sooner or later.

I'm so happy we got Mastodon now 😀
Patty Bluebird 🦩
Patty Bluebird 🦩  
•
Wish we could get the time back. It sucks. All those wasted hours, spinning my wheels and still not getting what I needed.

This place isn't perfect but I feel safer and am interacting with more people. It's much more satisfying than worrying about my followers / followings matching up perfectly or how many Likes I got.
Glencoe
Glencoe  
•
I imagine Mr Zuckerberg is by far, less concerned about anyone's connections, than about his wealth
Richservo :verified:
Richservo :verified:  
•
twitter is made to incite rage, suggesting topics and people it knows will trigger you. Facebook is 80% advertising and spies on your camera, browser, mic, you name it. Talk about something obscure and see ads for it for days.
James Russell
James Russell  
•
yep. It's intentional because they're evil
Dan Wentzel 🏳️‍🌈
Dan Wentzel 🏳️‍🌈  
•
it is even worse. The algorithm were designed to cause people to be angry to keep them coming back. The transformation from “social networking” to “social media” was not a healthy one.
Adiiantryx :verified:
Adiiantryx :verified:  
•
yeah and this platform is somehow far more wholesome? like even when there are disagreements they aren't twitter-level heated, they're more civil
Jim
Jim  
•
Mastodon isn't viable if they don't start running ads. The server cost is massive.
Evan Prodromou
Evan Prodromou  
•
@toyotabedzrock people can pay for their servers.
@Jim
sammiejoe
sammiejoe  
•
FB has done this too. Fills our timelines with meme feeds and hides updates from actual friends. I hate when I see ppl in person and they say, “oh I posted about it on FB, didn’t you see it?” No sorry, the algorithm hid it from me.
Andrew Mayers
Andrew Mayers  
•
@bigzaphod

It also might be that your followers skewed towards those who used 3rd party clients. I almost never voted in polls because no 3rd party clients supported them. Here it’s easy to vote from any client.
@Sean Heber
Sinistar7510
Sinistar7510  
•
I've noticed that when I post something about a personal interest that my followers share, the engagement rate is quite high. I have way fewer followers here than on Twitter but it feels about the same sometimes.
Unabogie :verified:
Unabogie :verified:  
•
What I notice most is that the posts I see are not posted for the sole sake of making me angry and getting me to shout at someone. It's really easy to goad me into that, but at the cost of my mental health.
Barry Schwartz 🫖
Barry Schwartz 🫖  
•
I never experienced that, because at some early time I encountered the idea of reading Twitter through private list instead of the Home page.

It was ad free and algorithm free. But it still sucked.

(It sucked, IMO, because it was Jack Dorsey trying to remake people in his shallow, misguided image, rather than just provide a ding dang service.)
Mark Tisdale - Artist
Mark Tisdale - Artist  
•
my experience as well. I have more engagement with fewer people and it’s more interesting/interactive. I enjoy popping in here where the other felt like getting a tooth extracted. It does make the past decade feel stolen….
Diane
Diane  
•
Link to the oatmeal comic about going from sharing stuff on your own site, to facebook charging you for it.

It takes a lot of alt text to describe so here's the post with the alt text.

https://octodon.social/@alienghic/109264052838268873

Diane 🕵 (@alienghic@octodon.social)

Attached: 1 image So I don't know if everyone should end up on the mastodon network, but conversations about the #TwitterMigration really reminded me of this comic.
the Octodon
Jeff Sharpe
Jeff Sharpe  
•
Interesting to trend if those numbers change when brands and celebrities come to Mastodon.
Johannes Ernst
Johannes Ernst  
•
this may not be all of the effect. I for one am more willing to engage in the fediverse because it feels more like I do-own it.
dnklgr
dnklgr  
•
conspiracy theory
lord pthenq1
lord pthenq1  
•
Yes dear. It is like being disconnected from the Matrix. Welcome back ☺️
Michael Cook
Michael Cook  
•
I have used Twitter through a third party app for my entire tenure. Chronological timeline, no algorithmic interference. Like Mastodon.

It would be so interesting to know what would (or would have) happened to Twitter’s culture without the algorithm.
Twitter_expat ✅(Fedi Resident)
Twitter_expat ✅(Fedi Resident)  
•
It’s not only engagement people here share more ideas and real comments. Not like #twitter that is one sad joke or dunk after the other. Conversations expand and make sense.
#twitter
Ms. Opossum graphs COVID data.
Ms. Opossum graphs COVID data.  
•
I get far fewer interactions with my COVID-19 scientific posts on Twitter as well, despite having double the followers there.
Kristiane Leigh
Kristiane Leigh  
•
I’ve literally been on Mastodon for 2 days, and I like it way more than I ever liked Twitter! I’m actually having genuine conversations about fun things and finding community… I’m so glad I joined!
Jason Brooks :fedora:
Jason Brooks :fedora:  
•
The algorithm there showed me your polls quite a bit -- it could tell I liked them!
Swearwoolf
Swearwoolf  
•
this feels so much better
Laurie Mercer
Laurie Mercer  
•
Great sentiment, you are so right. How can that message be condensed so other people get it?
podCast411
podCast411  
•
are you saying a higher % of a much much smaller audience that saw your poll responded or a higher % of the Same size audience? My experience is the audience size is a fraction of a fraction on mastodon vs twitter. So 1% on twitter would still be much larger than 20% on mastodon.
Evan Prodromou
Evan Prodromou  
•
@podcast411 I mean % of people who follow me. Not really a perfect measure, since with boosts you can go over 100%, but it's OK.
@podCast411
podCast411
podCast411  
•
so a larger % of a much smaller audience.
Evan Prodromou
Evan Prodromou  
•
@podcast411 in my case, no. I have about 5K followers on both platforms.
@podCast411
Jake in the desert
Jake in the desert  
•
I used to notice this when I saw I wouldn't see everyone's tweets. I had a CAREFULLY curated group of people I followed, and I'd miss tweets. I'd even miss them with notifications on- they don't even notify you of every tweet for people you have them on for! It's nuts. You have to just accept that you're not seeing tweets from everyone you follow all the time. It's stupid as hell.
Brett :cheers:
Brett :cheers:  
•
- agree 100%. Losing ads and decentralizing control will revolutionize social media and how we connect. But, without ad revenue, admins need to count on end user support for this to scale appropriately. Good, resilient infrastructure can be expensive - and the major platforms of the world recoup that through clicks.

In short - enjoy the platform - but consider supporting the admins! The quickest way for this to go away is for servers to disappear!

#mastoadmin #twittermigration #support
#mastoadmin #support #twittermigration
saurabh shandilya
saurabh shandilya  
•
that's what I am here to look for. Excited to see how it'll go
Tomáš Znamenáček
Tomáš Znamenáček  
•
But to be fair, the difference in response rates is also affected by Mastodon still being full mostly of early adopters that are more likely to be active and interact?
Giovanni Idili
Giovanni Idili  
•
besides polls, I get way more engagement from my 50 mastodon followers than my 700 twitter followers. It’s incredible and we would never notice if we didn’t have a comparable
LivePaola
LivePaola  
•
why are you angry? You could have called the people you cared about. It is not any platform’s fault that you chose to spend time on social media.
rood
rood  
•
YT machinations are equally infuriating.
xChaos
xChaos  
•
I partly may be caused by Twitter being more competitive market - you simply compete with lot of other content there.

Leaving too competitive markets is natural. People motivated by feedback itself will move to less competitive places like this. Huge markets tend to choose only content with some added value. (And I must admit, that my Twitter content was not really so much extraordinary...)
Paolo Amoroso
Paolo Amoroso  
•
It's not just polls, the socials bury everything if you aren't a celebrity or pay. And they also bury posts containing links that bring elsewhere or non-native media.
Christian Grobmeier
Christian Grobmeier  
•
@wiverson I experienced the same. Also I realize how much content Twitter hid from me and showed unrelated instead
@wiverson
Martino
Martino  
•
on Mastodon there are less contents, so the reach could be greater for this reason
Toni Aittoniemi
Toni Aittoniemi  
•
When Elmo first started attacking Twitter, I wrote this. Here’s an #analysis about how #socialmedia #algorithm changes our perception of the world: It replaces functions that are largely unconscious, hence we easily fail to notice we change, too.

https://gimulnaut-wordpress-com.translate.goog/2022/05/19/why-simply-being-against-censorship-is-the-not-the-strongest-argument-for-defending-freedom-of-speech-on-social-media/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Why simply ‘being against censorship’ is the not the strongest argument for defending freedom of speech on social media

Let us be blunt: With regard to the long-term process for defending freedom of speech online, the recent controversy of Elon Musk vs. Twitter has been effective at derailing the conversation from s…
Gimulnautti
#socialmedia #analysis #algorithm
newsorpigal
newsorpigal  
•
twitter's user count is probably inflated. There are too many abandoned accounts that show up in follower counts.
Lars Rosenquist
Lars Rosenquist  
•
@grobmeier And sadly, it’s the same on App Store, Spotify, etc. Attention, and thus revenue, flows to the big ones only. The average indie dev/artist operates at a loss. And the gap is very wide. Time for federation there as well. 😀
@Christian Grobmeier
Keith Hoodlet :verified: :donor:
Keith Hoodlet :verified: :donor:  
•
seize the means of connection, comrade!
Joseph Lord
Joseph Lord  
•
Based on my own behaviour algorithmic feed isn’t the whole reason for the difference in poll engagement.

1) I had more traffic there just because I’d built up a big number of people to follow, so for now I’m engaging with a higher percentage of things I see.

2) I was using Tweetbot and had to click through to the poll in the main Twitter app to vote which was a deterrent so I engaged in less polls than I would have if it was just two clicks.
Lucas H. 🇪🇺🇺🇦
Lucas H. 🇪🇺🇺🇦  
•
had the same experience. Engagement on Mastodon is insane.
Meow
Meow  
•
that is probably the single biggest challenge that anyone who wants to bring back true engagement to Twitter is going to face. Brands want numbers and inVestors want numbers. The algo is designed for that and nothing else
🌻 Gilles 💙💛
🌻 Gilles 💙💛  
•
Best way to own your time: do not give it to social media. They are designed to trick your brain, activating instant reward mechanisms to get your attention focused on what make them profitable. Surprise surprise, your well-being does not profit to them.

With Mastodon, no algorithm… so it's good way to reduce your addiction and finally get free (time).
Stephanie 🎀
Stephanie 🎀  
•
This is why I hate modern systems of advertising. It’s intrusive and manipulative.
Caleb Faruki
Caleb Faruki  
•
this is an interesting side effect worth noting @paulg
@paulg
Datarainbow Privacy Assistant✅
Datarainbow Privacy Assistant✅  
•
one side consequence of this: when your friends/connections don’t react to a post you don’t know if they ignored you or if your post was ignored by the algorithm. Another case of manipulation.
Nonya Bidniss
Nonya Bidniss  
•
I'd like for my parents' brains not to have been scrambled by white supremacists before they died. But they didn't use social media. They just watched Fox & Friends and listened to Rush Limbaugh, that's all it took.
Ben Sizer
Ben Sizer  
•
This reminds me of a few years back when small businesses, artists, charities, bands, and the like, started to realise that email - yes, the ancient format that everyone thought was ignored by everyone - had a far better reach and engagement than the social media they'd been tricked into devoting so much time and attention to. They'd been fighting hard for that 0.1% engagement rate on Facebook when email was giving them a 1%-5% click through rate. So much wasted time and effort.
Gone 2 Threads
Gone 2 Threads  
•
THAT is what makes Mastodon superior. It's not that all the people are nicer and discussions more cordial.

It's that we get to choose our associations and we have no overlord manipulating our feed for profit.
Simon 🪗
Simon 🪗  
•
it's really odd, in that the birdsite introduction of tweet read counts for everyone rather than just the poster emphasises your point, if anything. Seems like a negative thing to do, for them.

I'm more inclined to interact on here, too, less likely to get snark back, and I only just realise now how important that is to me.
mara
mara  
•
Yeah, Facebook is infuriating. It's supposed to be friends and family, only those you connect with, and my feed is full of suggestions and crap. Some of the time I have no idea if anybody is seeing what I post.
fathermucker
fathermucker  
•
I don't think it's a fair comparison. If and when Mastodon grows as large and as old as Twitter, response rates will fall too. It's just natural. Your current followers on Mastodon have just joined and are very active now. Twitter was there once upon a time.
Bruce Mirken
Bruce Mirken  
•
I think nearly everyone recently arrived here from the #BirdSite is discovering that engagement is far greater here, even without running polls. We had no idea how bad thst place had become, even pre-Elon.
#Birdsite
Truthfinder1234
Truthfinder1234  
•
watch the Social Dilemma on Netflix though it is a few years old it shows just what Facebook’s business model always was and Twitter followed suit.
~# sudohuman
~# sudohuman  
•
it was such a cruel development. "You don't have to manage a separate website, it's a centralized place where everyone's already at then when you do something new your followers will be the first to know!" Cool ok if this is the new MySpace then I guess we should set up a profile.
Then you put out a new song/EP/album and announce it and you get one or two thumbs up out of 500 followers and then Facebook offers "hey wanna boost your post? We have a complex scheme where basically you say how much you are willing to spend and then we'll decide how many of the people who've already said they want to find out when you've got something new will actually find out!"
Literally extorting you for access to your own followers.
I can't wait for it to die so we can go back to having our own webpages again.
Alex Galt 🧄
Alex Galt 🧄  
•
It was/is terrible for small business as well. My coffeehouse had 2,000 followers on IG who had followed us because, presumably, they wanted to be in the loop about events and other things. If I put out a post maybe 200 of the 2000 would see it. So effectively I was being charged for access to my own customers. Glad we sold the business!
Jack Yan (甄爵恩)
Jack Yan (甄爵恩)  
•
I saw this with Facebook around 2011. Our work page had an organic reach for posts in the thousands, even the myriads. Then one day that December, it plummeted 90 per cent and never recovered. It was clearly Facebook damaging the reach to force people to buy ads. As the drop was so sudden, I refused to buy anything since it looked like a scam.
Add the fact that they permit bots to exist, youʼre figuratively burning good money by dealing with them.
You have every right to be angry.
Maria Langer | 🛥️ 📝 🎬🚁
Maria Langer | 🛥️ 📝 🎬🚁  
•
Top tweets. That’s the algorithm. You have the power to turn it off.🤷🏻‍♀️

No relief on Facebook, though.
Evan Prodromou
Evan Prodromou  
•
@mlanger I'm talking about other people seeing my stuff and engaging with it. Me turning off Top Tweets doesn't help with that.
@Maria Langer | 🛥️ 📝 🎬🚁
Maria Langer | 🛥️ 📝 🎬🚁
Maria Langer | 🛥️ 📝 🎬🚁  
•
No, but if enough of the folks who follow you do it, too, it will.

In the meantime, it'll keep you from seeing the crap the algorithm throws at you.

I'm not defending the birdsite. I'm just pointing out that unlike Facebook, you do have some control over what YOU see.
Anne-Marie de Jong
Anne-Marie de Jong  
•
I’m sorry but that really came as a surprise?
And when, overnight?
Everything has a price.
On the so called ‘free’ social media you don’t pay with your time, looking at adds, you pay with you data. Thy rake in wat ever they can lay there hands on.
Evan Prodromou
Evan Prodromou  
•
@ABtj60 yes, it comes as a surprise.

I didn't have an unmodified social network to compare against, so I didn't know to what extent algorithmic feed manipulation was interfering in my social life.

I thought a 10x difference was pretty striking.
@Anne-Marie de Jong
Anne-Marie de Jong
Anne-Marie de Jong  
•
You’re not kidding?
I’ve seen your bio.
Neonriser
Neonriser  
•
Sorry to hear that! I can understand the struggle of validation and getting attention in our social media based world. I'll vote in your polls, if you dont mind.
⇧