This piece on Wired about Black Twitter is worth your time. It's something I've been thinking about a lot, about how uneven a migration to a new space ends up being.
It also is one thing I'm eyeing about Mastodon. There's a danger that servers become silos if we aren't intentional. If you listen to some of the Black scholars in my field, they are saying as much. Twitter makes their work visible across groups.
So how do we federate for inclusion? It will be a challenge.
I think this attitudinal shift is necessary. We (all of us) need to *build* the Fediverse, not just inhabit it. That may require initiating conversations and forging alliances between users and technicians that proprietary systems (in the name of convenience but in the service of control) put up barriers to prevent.
#TwitterMigration You are no longer consumers of a social media platform's services. You are members of a networked, nested community and, as such, have shouldered the obligations of citizens of that community and the communities with which it communicates. Those obligations are more or less formalized, more or less fluid, depending on your particular situation but you must work to learn them, help shape them, abide by and enforce them...or start a new community. #SeizeTheMeansOfCommunity
I hope we can be respectful and discuss (not demand, not impose) constructive alternatives...
because if we can't we have surrendered certain fundamental aspects of democracy.
Jeremy J. Littau
(((Baslow)))
Prof Beth Clare