this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2023
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There is nothing inherent about the design of the internet that prevents information from spreading and going viral. The thread is talking about some design decisions that Mastodon makes that are at odds with propagation of information through the network.
I'd argue it's search engines and social networks the ones that grant any level of "virality and discoverability ", not the internet itself. In the internet you need "third party" solutions for indexing or searching.
I mean, Mastodon probably intentionally lacks tools that enhance "virality and discoverability", but that's not the same thing as saying that it actively prevents information spread. You could in theory build a search engine for toots, or an alternate fork that does have those features. It's even free and open source software, so it's open to whatever.
Right, the internet is just a network that more complex things like social networks are built on top of. Hence why the question is with the design of Mastodon and completely unrelated to how the internet works fundamentally.
And I didn't say Mastodon actively prevents propagation, rather that some design decisions are at odds with viral propagation. It could be possible to build separate tooling on top, or to create forks that are more friendly towards propagation. However, Mastodon is by far the biggest ActivityPub based network right now, and the way it works plays a huge role for how Fediverse can be used at the moment.