Mastodawn

Lesli Carroll √Nov 6, 2022

Mark Shane Hayden

So it seems that trolls of the Trumpist frozen peach variety, mostly those who set up their own Pleroma instances when Parler got taken down, are undertaking a semi-coordinated effort to target journalists who sign up on Mastodon for a couple of reasons...

* Trump has taught them that professional journalism and critical thinking are elitist and bad so lets harass them until they go away

* they are trying to prove some sort of point that this place can be just as toxic as their beloved Frozen Peach in Chief's microblogging site

If you are a journo and you get dogpiled by trolls DO NOT ENGAGE with them at all! Immediately:

1. REPORT them to your instance mods, THEN
2. Block them

Step 1 is very important! This isn't twitter or facebook...mods will take swift action, and if they don't you can migrate instances to better moderated ones...

Scott (personal)Nov 6, 2022

@msh I want to double-down on the idea that journalists doing just-in-time information sharing on twitter was one of the backbones of the information ecosystem that was standing in the way of widespread media manipulation and far right information operations, and they are coming to mastodon because that ecosystem is being actively disrupted. I’ve already seen coordinated attempts here to drive journalists off of masto and it would be a big boon to the haters if that were to happen.

Jared 🇦🇺🏳️‍🌈⚧️👽Nov 6, 2022

@vortex_egg @msh I wouldn't say the drive is to keep journalism off masto; it is to for their publications to run their instances. Those of us running instances out of our or our communitie's pockets don't want to carry commercial traffic. Simple.

realcaseyrollins ✝️Nov 6, 2022

@jared @vortex_egg @msh journa.host is there for any news outlet or journalist to use.

Journa.host

The server for working journalists and news outlets on Mastodon. Home to active & retired journalists, media scholars, and a variety of news and journalism adjacent professionals. #Newstodon

Mastodon hosted on journa.host

Jared 🇦🇺🏳️‍🌈⚧️👽Nov 6, 2022

@realcaseyrollins @msh @vortex_egg most excellent! I hope the community there is looking at other #Fediverse tools like #WriteFreely for federated long-form content.. that would be amazing.

I see potential for newswire services utilising ActivityPub/Fediverse too; it is a platform and protocol - #Mastodon is one implementation.

realcaseyrollins ✝️Nov 6, 2022

@jared @msh @vortex_egg TBH, I don't see any benefit on their end for doing that. IDK if any #MSM sites run on #WordPress but if so there's some sort of addon they can get that connects those sites to the #Fediverse

Mark Shane Hayden Nov 6, 2022

@jared I am not stating opinion here...this toot comes from first hand observations during my moderation activities tonight. Many of these trolls are explicitly stating that journalists from traditional media are evil in some capacity and should be driven off fedi the way the trolls were driven off Big Social Media.

They only want them to move to their own instances so they are easier to find and harass.

They want them gone.

Gary Mortimer Nov 6, 2022

@msh @jared @vortex_egg Won't the way this works make it easier to boot them from the fediverse?

Strypey Nov 8, 2022

@GaryMortimer
It makes it impossible to boot anyone from the fediverse as a whole. But it's not too hard for any given instance to defederate from others that are a persistent source of spam, trolling, or harassment.

@msh @jared @vortex_egg

@jared @vortex_egg @msh

Once upon a time, journalism was perceived as being in the public interest more than a commercial venture ....

faine greenwood Nov 6, 2022

@downey @jared @vortex_egg @msh another huge problem there is that journalists do need to be able to make a living, and very few organizations want to pay a living wage for good journalism nowadays (a decline that’s been happening for over 20 years).

ona [she/they]Nov 6, 2022

@jared
but why don't you put in your instance conditions that you don't want commercial journalism? we don't need to attack one each other, do we?

@vortex_egg @msh

realcaseyrollins ✝️Nov 6, 2022

@vortex_egg @msh I don't like most #MSM journalists, but most of us (right-leaning) are mostly upset that one of the journa.host users doxxed, or tried to doxx, the admin of #Poast, #graf.

Maybe journalists view doxxing as journalism. @taylorlorenz has no problem with it. But most people have an overwhelmingly negative view of doxxing. Don't expect too many people to respond well to that type of behavior.

Journa.host

The server for working journalists and news outlets on Mastodon. Home to active & retired journalists, media scholars, and a variety of news and journalism adjacent professionals. #Newstodon

Mastodon hosted on journa.host

Mark Shane Hayden Nov 6, 2022

@realcaseyrollins Political leanings notwithstanding journalism is not in a great state and there are a fair share of self-described journalists that are hacks.

That said, it is no excuse for piling on ANY journalist, up to threatening them or wishing them dead.

I have seen what some of the more fragile trolls consider "doxxing" and it really ain't. Poast has some fairly fragile ones too. That said, I have seen some really shitty behaviour from some journalists.

Of they were really being doxxed there are reasonable ways to deal with it, starting with the advice I gave all the way up to legitimate legal action.

Calling up the troll brigade is not reasonable.

@vortex_egg @taylorlorenz

realcaseyrollins ✝️Nov 6, 2022

Fair point.

I’m a bit wary, still, I don’t want to be doxxed. Other than that, they actually should be on the #Fediverse.

Whether or not journalism is in a good state isn’t connected to whether or not they should be here. It’ll be nice to have the fourth estate here if they stick around.

That said, it is no excuse for piling on ANY journalist, up to threatening them or wishing them dead.

That’s coming from a very specific sector of the #Fediverse, they should block those instances before they drive the journalists away

I have seen what some of the more fragile trolls consider “doxxing” and it really ain’t. Poast has some fairly fragile ones too. That said, I have seen some really shitty behaviour from some journalists.

Fair enough, and in hindsight, while @JonahGoldberg seemed to have attempted to doxx #graf, it’s looking more like he just conglomerated publicly available information on the guy. Not doxxing.

TECI Social

Mark Shane Hayden Nov 6, 2022

@realcaseyrollins

Yeah I hope journos don't give up and they can keep up with moderation. My hope is that the non-commercial, distributed and diverse nature of fedi will give them new perspective and teach some lessons and contribute to bringing more responsibility to the profession again.

Like with teachers, there ARE good ones out there that care and want to continually improve. I hope we can all be constructive about it.

@vortex_egg @JonahGoldberg @taylorlorenz

Strypey Nov 8, 2022

@msh
> Yeah I hope journos don't give up and they can keep up with moderation.

Sadly most of them are pretty fragile themselves, and will pull a Wesley Crusher and scuttle back to Titter. Then they'll publish stories defending Titter as the lesser evil, demonizing Mastodon (because they haven't even grasped the 101 of what the fediverse is), and predicting it's downfall. We've seen all this before...

@realcaseyrollins @vortex_egg @taylorlorenz

realcaseyrollins ✝️Nov 8, 2022

They need someone more resilient to fight for them. I’m sure they’ll be fine.

Strypey Nov 8, 2022

@msh
It's the equivalent of a travel journalist visiting a new city, wandering down a dark alley, getting mugged, and writing an article about how the while city is a hotbed of muggers. I'm constantly disappointed by their tech journalists, their lack of background knowledge and research, and their ambulance chasing approach of writing about whatever's 'trending' and then promptly forgetting about it.

@realcaseyrollins @vortex_egg @taylorlorenz