AlastairJul 1, 2023

In a Twitter space hosted by Oz Katerji, a British-Lebanese reporter based in Ukraine and NAFO ally.

3 speakers show the effects of Musk's idiocy.

- A rescuer said Twitter communication saved 1000s of lives from natural disasters. The new limits render it useless.

- An Afghan said the Taliban bought masses of blue-check accounts, where they celebrate suicide bombings around the world.

- A Nigerian journalist can no longer use Twitter to bypass state censorship.

For Musk, it's just a game.

Show threadBarry Schwartz 🫖Jul 2, 2023

@alcaldood But when do people simply ditch Twitter as unusable, and treat it as history? Or are people going to do like the journalism outfits and beg for privileges?

It seems to me wrong to talk about Twitter AS IF IT STILL EXISTS. I consider it GONE and suggest others view it that way. It simply no longer exists.

Look at it this way: even if one were to get back the means to communicate about natural disasters TOMORROW, there’s no reliability for THE DAY AFTER THAT. Better to assume it gone.

Show threadAlastairJul 2, 2023
@chemoelectric Yes I agree with all that. I just don't know what the alternative is yet. Mastodon is funded by donations and staffed by volunteers, who do a fantastic job, but can it scale using that model? As users increase, interactions increase by a much higher factor, and at some point it will need a reliable source of funding.
Show threadGiulia
@alcaldood @chemoelectric And how can it be provided? That's the problem
Jul 2, 2023 at 11:55amWeb
Show threadBarry Schwartz 🫖Jul 2, 2023

@giulia2575 @alcaldood

Let us keep in mind that "Mastodon", unlike Twitter, is not a website. It cannot provide quite the same services.

If an outfit wants to provide emergency broadcasts, for instance, it will need a website.

Even just to use Mastodon one needs a website. Currently I sm using masto.ai. I used to use mstdn.social. Sometimes I do essentially the same from pixelfed.social.

Show threadGiuliaJul 2, 2023
@chemoelectric @alcaldood Now, the problem is for the emergency alert. Elmo has destroyed that
Show threadBarry Schwartz 🫖Jul 2, 2023

@giulia2575 @alcaldood

In a sense, yes. But Twitter was hanging by a thread as a business, anyway.

Show threadBarry Schwartz 🫖Jul 2, 2023

@giulia2575 @alcaldood

As an aside: my opinion of Jack Dorsey never was any better than my opinion of Musk. It ends up unsurprising that Dorsey foisted Musk on Twitter, even after holding it up from imminent collapse a few years ago.

Show threadBarry Schwartz 🫖Jul 2, 2023

@giulia2575 @alcaldood

If there is a centralized emergency broadcast site OTOH, then it can federate and be visible on Mastodon. But also on Pixelfed, etc.

It's a different way of looking at things than Twitter.

Show threadBarry Schwartz 🫖Jul 2, 2023

@giulia2575 @alcaldood

So that's what one really wants. It's a thing governments should provide but of course we are constrained by the desires of very bad (in different senses of that word) people of all political persuasions.

Show threadAlastairJul 2, 2023
@chemoelectric @giulia2575 That's a great point. Yes governments should be stepping in here, not to dictate how to do it but to support the people who actually take the initiative.