Lauren WeinsteinApr 5, 2023

**** Elon's Soviet style post-event alteration of Twitter policy to attack NPR ****

Let's be clear what just happened. Elon Musk apparently was unhappy about at least one NPR story. So he arbitrarily slapped NPR with the "state affiliated media" label usually reserved for propaganda outlets under government editorial control like Russia's RT and the Chinese Communist Party newspaper. NPR only gets a tiny percentage of its funding from the government, which conservatives have long been trying to zero out completely. Voice of America, BBC, and "Stars and Stripes" are not so designated, despite being under government editorial control.

Worse, Elon *retroactively* moved after the fact to specifically remove NPR from the section of Twitter policy that explained that outlets like BBC and NPR were not considered to be government-affiliated media.

He continues to respond to official queries with a poop emoji.

No media organization or advertiser is safe dealing with him. Nor is the U.S. government. End these relationships as quickly as practicable, before you regret being in bed with his twisted sensibilities.

Show threadJL RobersonApr 5, 2023
@lauren The amazing thing about #ElonMusk's power over free speech: if you leave his club and go talk in a different one, he cannot stop you.
Musk only has power over free speech insofar as people GRANT it to him, and his is not the only platform. Really, it's trash now. If everyone credible leaves him, he just eats 44 billion dollars he paid for a blog with the biggest comments section, him and his Nazis alone
Show threadLauren WeinsteinApr 5, 2023
@jlroberson Most users there can't leave. There is nowhere with similar reach or as easy to use where they can go. Mastodon isn't it, obviously.
Show threadJL RobersonApr 5, 2023
@lauren I disagree, obviously.
Show threadLauren Weinstein
@jlroberson I've basically stopped recommending new people sign up here. I'm tired of hearing back about onboarding problems (even from highly technical people) and the HATE spewed on people here who don't fit "the preferred profile". Not to mention the technical problems that there's no interest in actually fixing. Mastodon is a toy. A *fun* toy to be sure. But just a toy.
Apr 5, 2023 at 5:34pmWeb
Show threadJL RobersonApr 5, 2023
@lauren Maybe it's because I signed up a few years ago(and then didn't use it till last Oct) but I never saw any of these issues with servers. I only had to sign in. But I don't doubt others have.
It doesn't change that Musk only has power over speech that others grant him, and that if credible people leave the platform its worth is nil.
Show threadJL RobersonApr 5, 2023
@lauren PS I miss the internet where people remembered they could build their own shit, too.(like websites, etc) I hate the way social media kneecapped people's sense of agency till everyone's forgotten all that.
Show threadGreenDotGuyApr 5, 2023

@lauren Can I ask what the onboarding problems actually are? I feel like a Google search for "[marginalized community] safe Mastodon" has decent enough results from places like Reddit that would point people in the right direction. Besides some sort of 'front door' to the service, asking users to do that seems like a solve to the biggest onboarding issue I can imagine.

Personally, I followed like-minded people out, so it was 'easy' for me to just... see where they were going, then go check that place out and read the community standards.

Show threadGreenDotGuyApr 5, 2023
@lauren I'm just wondering if things have changed in the last six months, between Twitter being 'less good' and mainstream awareness of Mastodon being 'much better'.
Show threadMrShoggothApr 5, 2023
@DarcMoughty @lauren - I’d guess it’s having to pick a server with zero information on which to choose and figuring out the difference between Home and the Fediverse streams. Also, some apps are just inferior. It wasn’t that difficult to overcome, but I had the added encouragement of hating Musk’s guts.
Show threadLauren WeinsteinApr 5, 2023
@MrShoggoth @DarcMoughty Most people don't have time to screw around with that stuff. Seriously, it's a tautology supreme to call Mastodon onboarding anything other than a hot mess.
Show threadMrShoggothApr 5, 2023
@lauren @DarcMoughty - Shrug. If you have time to sit on Twitter for 6 hours a day, you’ve got time for it. You may not want to expend the time, of course.
Show threadGreenDotGuyApr 6, 2023

@lauren I'm just confused by how it's considered a problem and not just an intrinsic way of the thing working that facilitates its openness.

Like, I had to choose an email provider, and it lets me interact with people on others. That makes sense to me. I had to choose that carefully, why is choosing a social media home base such a stretch. I think a lot of this shows that the concept of a social network as a thing from a single provider is so entrenched that people find federation jarring?

Show threadserklarvelApr 5, 2023
@lauren @jlroberson every week, #mastodon gets 300 thousand users and they are at least smart enough to understand what an instance is. It's a good and sizeable community. Texas Observer was saved by Mastodon users, for example.
Show threadMrShoggothApr 5, 2023
@lauren @jlroberson - I’ve had none of those problems. I’ve been here for 4 months or so and I enjoy it quite a bit. If yer on the bird platform you’re paying Elmo with yer eyeballs. That’s fine - it’s yer life - but pretending yer doing it out of some kind of altruism is nonsense.
Show threadJL RobersonApr 5, 2023
@MrShoggoth @lauren The thing is, I built up my own presence on Twitter from 2009-Oct 2022 and couldn't imagine leaving it till #ElonMusk started dinging my tweets for saying unkind things about Trump.
Then I left and haven't missed it, and without an account and all my careful blocking and muting, it's...a stupid eyesore in which every day, for some reason, SHREK is trending. And hockey.
Show threadPari Moon-ForestApr 6, 2023
@jlroberson @MrShoggoth
I keep getting "Meghan" and "NotMyKing". It just panders to your clicks (sort of).
I just can't get the rare few people I still want to follow to see reason and get off of it. Two are connected to a network and two are just being stubborn. But now frequently they're arguing with what are clearly bots or trolls...It's not worth my time.
Show threadJL RobersonApr 6, 2023
@PariMoonForest @MrShoggoth Well, this is what you get without any clicks at all in my case except on the tabs.
Show threadJL RobersonApr 6, 2023
@PariMoonForest @MrShoggoth Mostly it's sports(something I would never even look at) and, again, Shrek. Why Shrek? And why is hockey always the most popular of these sports trending.
Oh, and also WWE(also something I would never even look at) but that's not a sport, it's gay porn. ;)
Show threadPari Moon-ForestApr 6, 2023
@jlroberson @MrShoggoth
Yeah I think it's stuff that plays to who's on the site a lot. Not real high-IQ stuff.
Show threadJL RobersonApr 6, 2023
@PariMoonForest @MrShoggoth It tells you the true nature of Twitter, which may well just be like one of those TV channels that seems to endlessly play in late night diners that is nothing but sports guys in suits talking between ads for gold or whatever.
Show threadPari Moon-ForestApr 6, 2023
@jlroberson @MrShoggoth
That pretty much sums it up.
Show threadJL RobersonApr 6, 2023
@PariMoonForest @MrShoggoth (PS All those guys usually look like either Joe Tacopina or the Rock)