Jeff JarvisI should share that I was an advisor briefly to Post.news, asked to put together an advisory board. I withdrew for various reasons -- disagreement about another advisor and about federation -- and have no ties to it now. I received nothing. I like Noam, its founder, and respect his work (Waze!). I'll watch Post. But I'm much more engaged here and want to study and learn about the potential of federation -- ActivityPub, Bluesky, Scuttlebutt -- as a model for public discourse.
Jackie Gardina@jeffjarvis I am curious whether you think a federated site can engage in the same mass mobilization of social justice movements that Twitter did globally. I am thinking of Arab Spring and the BLM movement in the summer of 2020.
@jackiegardina I think we have already seen it in Black Twitter. Andre Brock's Distributed Blackness shows how Black Twitter existed on its own, not under white gaze, but broke out when it wanted to with #BLM et al.
Things can spread quickly across a federated ecology without centralized promotion.That's not how BLM grew; it grew emergently there & could here, I think.
One question is whether media would notice and bring their amplification in turn. We'll see if they're smart enough to join.
Things can spread quickly across a federated ecology without centralized promotion.That's not how BLM grew; it grew emergently there & could here, I think.
One question is whether media would notice and bring their amplification in turn. We'll see if they're smart enough to join.
@jeffjarvis Perhaps it was the combination of the algorithm plus media attention that I am puzzling over. The algorithm identified emergent themes that the media deemed worthy of amplifying. I am not sure the reverse is true but perhaps it is. I have no doubt that movements can organize and perhaps even more freely on a federated site but can they gain attention and momentum outside of the site is perhaps the right question.