Mediaboss Marketing

Been playing (aka wasting time) with ChatGPT andPerplexity.aifor quite sometime and thought of what can it produce when asked whether newspapers should or should not spin up their own Mastodon instance. Here are the results from these two companies that use large language models (LLMs):

OpenAI's ChatGPT says:

"Mastodon, a decentralized social media platform, is gaining popularity as an alternative to larger social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. As such, newspapers are considering whether they should spin up their own Mastodon instance. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of this approach:

Advantages:Increased control: By hosting their own Mastodon instance, newspapers have complete control over the content that is shared and the users that engage with the content.Audience engagement: Mastodon provides a more personalized way for newspapers to engage with their audience and build a stronger relationship with them.

Decentralization: By hosting their own instance, newspapers can contribute to Mastodon's decentralized nature and ensure that the platform remains open and accessible to all.Privacy: Mastodon is designed to prioritize privacy and data security, ensuring that users' data is protected and newspapers are not subject to privacy concerns.

Disadvantages:Limited audience: Mastodon still has a relatively small user base compared to larger social media platforms, which could limit the audience for newspapers that host their own instance.Cost: Running and maintaining a Mastodon instance can be expensive, especially for smaller newspapers with limited resources.Technical expertise: Hosting a Mastodon instance requires technical expertise and knowledge of the platform, which could be difficult and expensive for newspapers to obtain.Fragmentation: Mastodon's decentralized nature means that there are many different instances, each with their own set of rules and regulations. This could make it difficult for newspapers to reach a wide audience and could lead to a lack of consistency in the content that is shared.In conclusion, hosting a Mastodon instance provides increased control and audience engagement for newspapers, while contributing to the platform's decentralized nature and prioritization of privacy. However, it comes with a limited audience, high costs, technical expertise requirements, and fragmentation. Newspapers must carefully consider their goals and resources before deciding whether to host their own Mastodon instance or stick with more established social media platforms."

And here's whatPerplexity.AIsays:

"Mastodon is a decentralized social network that allows users to create their own instances. Newspapers can spin up their own Mastodon instance to have more control over their content and build a community around their brand. One of the main advantages of creating a Mastodon instance is that it allows newspapers to have complete editorial control over what stories are told and how they are presented. This can be especially important for newspapers that want to focus on niche topics or cater to specific audiences. Another advantage is that it allows newspapers to build a community of readers who are interested in their content and engage with them directly. However, creating a Mastodon instance requires technical expertise, and it can be difficult to attract users to a new instance. Additionally, Mastodon is still a relatively new platform, and most users are already part of established instances. Newspapers should carefully weigh the pros and cons before deciding whether or not to create their own Mastodon instance."

Note that I asked both to produce a concise version.

Are the results correct and accurate? Well, not quite. It basically got the decentralization, increased control over the content, and cost of running an instance (including technical expertise) correct (but you can pay for a managed hosting service for this). The others, well, just prove that LLMs are not intelligent-does not know where to pull data about how federation works, i.e., you don't need users to be on the same instance to interact with them. This means that there aren't that many articles written about federation and decentralization, enough for the LLMs to digest and update its model, ergo just like a parrot.

Newspaper companies, instead of paying to get verified, should consider having their own Mastodon (or Misskey or Calckey) instance, if and only if, they value complete editorial control of their content (and complete control of how they store their data) over other things popular social media companies, like Facebook and Twitter, provide.

Growing the number of readers should not be an issue, specially when you are sure that your posts are not being rate-limited by algorithms designed to push for more advertisements in favor of the social media company. Just how did their followers increase to start with? NO different on the federated universe, IMHO.

I'd say NOW is the time to seriously look into this and decide. Freedom of the press should not be dependent on some algorithm that maximizes profit for the platform. If newspaper companies treat Facebook, Twitter and Tiktok as distribution platforms (worse with algorithms that determine who to show their articles to), then why ignore the reach of the federated universe (Mastodon, Misskey, Calckey, Pleroma, Pixelfed, PeerTube, Micro.blog, WordPress, Flipboard, and soon, hopefully, Tumblr and Flickr, too), right?

Go here to see the original:

What do LLMs say about newspaper companies and Mastodon? - Manila Bulletin