The difference between Mastodon one-way followers and Friendica/Hubzilla two-way contacts; CW: long (almost 1,900 characters), Fediverse meta, Fediverse-beyond-Mastodon meta, Twitter/𝕏 mentioned
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Okay, so you're on Mastodon. You've sent a follow request to what you think is another Mastodon account.
Upon confirming your follow request, they've also sent you a follow request. They're obviously curious about what you toot and what you boost.
But:
They aren't on Mastodon. You think they are. But they aren't. They're on Friendica or Hubzilla.
They didn't decide to follow you back. It was their software, Friendica or Hubzilla, that absolutely
has to follow you back in order to let you follow someone on it.
See, 𝕏 and Mastodon have "followers" and the concept of "following". Connections that always go one way. Even if there's a "mutual", it's two connections. One that goes one way, one that goes the other way.
Friendica and Hubzilla only have "mutuals", but not as
two separate connections in
one way each like Mastodon mutuals, but as
one connection that goes
both ways. Like "friends" on Facebook. They call them "contacts".
Friendica and Hubzilla don't understand one-way "following". They understand Mastodon follow requests as requests to create a two-way connection. And when the request is confirmed, they create a two-way connection.
Mastodon, on the other hand, doesn't understand two-way "contacts". When Friendica or Hubzilla approves a two-way connection, Mastodon understands it as confirming a one-way follow request plus, independently, deliberately, intentionally, sending a follow request back.
However, the follow request you get from a Friendica account or Hubzilla channel that you've just followed was not sent deliberately or intentionally. It was fully automated. It was to turn your follow request into the kind of two-way connection that Friendica and Hubzilla understand.
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