Mastodawn

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦

RE: https://social.coop/@scottjenson/116352522288234148

Oh. so this is the thread people have been talking about.

jfc.

look, i only know of Dare from Twitter & the tech scene. so that’s almost 20 years now (i joined there in 2007). Dare is like the Black unicorn of techbrolandia. he was never the guy to bring visibility to what’s newsworthy. he’s always been around to amplify techbros.

you know who was followed for what was newsworthy?

ME.

i was in the top 5 of most influential accounts during the #ArabSpring & #OccupyWallStreet

🧵…

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦20h ago

look, i used Twitter as a news platform way before most people even imagined it could be used as such.

i was reporting on-the-ground, posting pics & videos with my Blackberry by 2008. i created a lot of what's now considered conventional reporting.

that’s why thousands of reporters and news orgs followed me. i was the journalists’ journalist.

and it’s why i later found out, thanks to Edward Snowden, i had been targeted by techbros. because am a nobody (to them) that people trust.

🧵…

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦20h ago

there’s a lot of bullshit with the “but where are the Black people”.
https://social.coop/@scottjenson/116352800579635299

if the #fediverse isn’t like corporate “social media” built for surveillance; then stop trying to use Mastodon to stalk people.

BIPOC come to the fediverse to not be the target of the WHITE GAZE. they come to the fediverse to be whatever the fuck they want to be.

BIPOC are here, using their personas of choice, cuz they’re NOT here for you to stalk them.

🧵…

Scott Jenson (@[email protected])

As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear: 1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices 2. Some people don't seem to want that 3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed? 4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome 5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022 Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.

social.coop

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦20h ago

this post though… OMG… don't even know how to begin with this:
https://social.coop/@scottjenson/116358195717244835

the tell is in his use of “AI JOURNALISM”. that’s just the cherry on top of the shit sundae Jenson is tryna sell as “the echo chamber”.

in Scott Jenson’s world, people who reject #AIslop are also racists who won’t boost his one Black, “AIfluencer” friend Dare.

nobody is buying Dare’s efforts to sell #AIslop as inevitable because there is nothing to buy.

IT’S ALL HYPE & PROPAGANDA

🧵…

Scott Jenson (@[email protected])

OK, this is going even MORE sideways so I need to make a few things clear: 1. I took a complex point and made it poorly 2. My goal was to ask for more inclusiveness 3. I am sickened by what happend to BlackTwitter and I don't want it recur 4. But I can't speak for BlackTwitter nor should I 5. I apologize to black mastodon users for making such a poor comparison 6. I'm not endorsing "AI Slop" they were a foil to make my point 7. I'm certainly NOT trying to compare AI bros to Black twitter (but, as I said, I can see how people made that connection. I'm trying to correct that here)

social.coop

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦20h ago

LET SET ASIDE THAT:

1. Dare uses images of headlines and refuses to add #AltTxt to them, antagonizing one of the biggest trends native to the #fediverse

2. Dare also refuses to link to the articles from whence he snatches said headlines, breaking one of the most basic of web usability conventions.

Obasanjo spends an inordinate amount of time selling the inevitability of #AIslop. he even boasted about firing half his staff and forcing the survivors to slop themselves into relevancy

🧵…

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦20h ago

i don’t know about y’all but who takes seriously a Naijaman selling the inevitability of #tech #fascism and #colonialism?

and now i have to wonder: is Dare’s account meant to be an engagement bot onhere?

because it doesn't make any sense at all to say there are no Black people on the #fediverse because it is averse to “engagement bots”. it does make sense though if you are using digital #Blackface like that “soul” singer on Youtube.

which brings me to the phenomenon of #BlackTwitter

🧵…

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦19h ago

THERE ARE TWO BLACKTWITTERS

1. the organic growth, virality and stickiness that grew from the handful of Black folks who joined the platform on 2007 during SXSW. it literally happened after a panel on BIPOC people on the web that @anildash and I were part of

2. the “engagement network” of bots that Jack Dorsey called #BlackTwitter, so he could sell premium access to the API to spammers and purveyors of corporate stalkerware.

in other words 🧵…

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦19h ago

Dorsey saw the phenomenon of Black Twitter, saw the network effect of nobodies like me, and went about to replicating it with a whole batallion of #blackface bots that he then sold as the power of Twitter’s network effect and virality.

it doesn’t necessarily mean he was selling access to his made up Blacktwitter. it does mean that premium access to the API, bought the possibility of building your own "blacktwitter".

THIS IS WHY MUSK TOOK THE PLATFORM PRIVATE WITH DORSEY’S BLESSING

🧵…

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦19h ago

remember that Musk lawsuit over the price of Twitter because he claimed it was based on fake users?

THAT WAS SMOKE & MIRRORS

it was deflecting attention from what was really going on: how the platform was being used to manufacture “sentiment” frenzies for Tesla stocks.

Twitter started as a microblogging site in the 00s, that pivoted to stalkerware in the 10s and now, in the 20s, is used as the very visible hand of the market that techbros get to control.

🧵…

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦19h ago

does this still explain how many of very visible Blackfluencers are on Bluesky and not Mastodon?

well… if it means they make money as very visible influencers selling use of their accounts to market research firms, then yes, it explains it. the money is there, not here.

and notice, am being deliberate in the use of BLACKFLUENCER, not Black people. representation matters, and people will go where they see their familiar faces.

but… 🧵…

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦19h ago

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

Dorsey got at one point an infusion of money from Jay-Z and Snoop Dog (they have separate investment firms). this is also part of the whole manufacturing of the #Blacktwitter mystique.

the day any Black celebrity decides to set up shop with their own #Mastodon instance, it’s game over for corporate social media.

no, not a Bluesky instance; but a truly independent, open source and federatable social network built on Mastodon.

🧵…

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦18h ago

for good or bad, celebrity is still a powerful currency.

for BIPOC, it creates an effect similar to a sweet water jetty in the middle of the ocean.

celebrities are the vortex sucking in people like them. each person is like a drop of sweet water bonding with others like them in the sea. the jetty endures and grows in spite of the saltiness around them.

representation matters.

the day will come for that jetty of sweet water to form in the middle of the salty fediverse.

give it time.

/🧵

cwicseolfor 18h ago

@blogdiva Only following you would I come to learn about modern tech history and social power dynamics and end up also reading about haloclines. You're such a gift to these generations.

Moss Wizard 17h ago

@blogdiva I wish I had kept receipts, but I remember one of the bigger #BlackTwitter voices describing how Dorsey flew a few dozen of those influencers to his HQ, gave them gifts, and said he would do and pay whatever it took for them to bring BT to his platform exclusively. In fairness, that did include QTs and blocklists, which mastodon fumbled; and masto did not do any similar outreach to BT. The same guy said he didn’t care about all the (legitimate) criticisms of Dorsey and his motives, because Dorsey was the only one to invite Black people to the table and pay them. Fair, I guess.

I think about this whenever we get these posts saying we’re racist for not embracing the tech bro version of the story.

I AM BANKSY ☕ / 🗑‍🔥17h ago

@Moss Flying people to the Mastodon offices and plying them with gifts and swag is going to be a problem, though.

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦16h ago

@Moss and he did that with Jay-Z and Snoop Dog money. that’s the part of the equation people often forget.

Mr. Sean Carter seems to be in the right place at the right time the Epstein Class needs to bamboozle people into making them money.

there’s a devastating article about how he was very happy to be used for the razing of downtown Brooklyn for the Nets arena, so Bloomberg could let the developer flip it to a Putin cronie.

his name has to be in those hidden Epstein files.

numanumayey 15h ago

@blogdiva @Moss

> he did that with Jay-Z and Snoop Dog money.

with mastodon being a non-profit org, it wouldn't have that kind of money to begin with,

(although if you did get that money, at least you could justify it in the tax report as being critical to the company's mission).

Susanna the Artist 🌻17h ago

@blogdiva Maybe Tyler Perry would be willing to do to social media what he did to Hollywood?

bituur esztreym 16h ago

@blogdiva
dunno where exactly put this so, at the end of your thread:

in all this story/storm - and i read yours and many posts and threads on it including https://pouet.chapril.org/@KimCrayton1@dair-community.social/116359100535324028 (not a tech, a people problem) -

i can't help feeling strong echoes and thinking there are dots connecting with Cory's blunder (yeah i dare call it a blunder) on Audre Lorde's "masters house and tools" sentence, as insightfully called out by Tara Tarakiyee..
https://tarakiyee.com/on-the-enshittification-of-audre-lorde-the-masters-tools-in-tech-discourse/ (i like get to link to it again)

Mastodon Chapril

numanumayey 15h ago

@bituur_esztreym @blogdiva

it was definitely a blunder, and a shallow reading of the concept of the "master's house and tools".

because to extend @pluralistic's metaphor further, the master knows that the tools he used to make the house (the toolbox with all the fiddly bits and pieces in exactly the right sizes that cory refers to in his book), can dismantle his house.

so he will take all pains to spitefully destroy the actual tools he used to MAKE his house and wage an information warfare campaign on his victims to conflate the tools that they use to MAINTAIN his house (the lash, the gun, the large language model, the electric chair) with the ones that he used to MAKE it.

when his victims blindly adopt the master's tools in a bid to dismantle his house, instead they only maintain the house he built, and with it, his legacy.

so it requires his victims to reinvent the wheel in order to properly dismantle his house.

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦14h ago

thank you for introducing me to Tarakiyee. haven’t finished reading the article but it’s been 100% on point. a really great read.

@bituur_esztreym

Internet Rando 12h ago

@bituur_esztreym @blogdiva This is an excellent take.

I do use Audre Lorde's quote in technical discussion, I cite her and describe the original context, too.

I constantly see the ongoing enshittification, and the colonial underpinnings, of internet services and the despair and hopelessness it causes to normal everyday people. And to Audre( and Cory)'s point, it is largely about how much people are wrapped up in Windows, or MacOS or Meta or Google. Nobody will win if they keep using these.

bituur esztreym 19h ago

@blogdiva thanks for this thread! i knew some parts but i do learn others.

Virginicus 16h ago

@blogdiva I had no idea.

🏳️‍🌈 Bri 🌞🚴🌱✨15h ago

@blogdiva I was hardly on Twitter pre-Musk (when I finally deleted the account). I had heard of Black Twitter but never this side of it. I appreciate you pointing it out, I hadn't pieced it together.

@blogdiva omg i have no idea who scott is but by your first post of the thread seems worthy for me to block them. Thank you for your efforts, Liza ❤️

Rashunda Tramble 20h ago

@blogdiva Should I click or should I keep my blood pressure down?

Deb Nam-Krane 18h ago

@rashunda I clicked and skimmed. It's probably exactly what you think it's going to be. A lot of concern trolling. @blogdiva

@blogdiva His post gave me vibes of pickup negging to be honest.

https://chaos.social/@onepict/116358727729295265

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag: (@[email protected])

Content warning: Main character, AI

chaos.social

Blake C. Stacey 19h ago

@blogdiva Oh, my. Scott is actually, seriously doing "first they came for the AI bros".

myrmepropagandist 19h ago

“lukewarm to politics”

lol what?

Flipper 🐬🏳️‍🌈19h ago

@futurebird @blogdiva

they obviously don't follow @benroyce

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 19h ago

@flipper @futurebird @blogdiva

"I don't do politics" is usually seen on dating sites on the profiles of men who are trying to hide they are MAGA. They don't want to get roasted by the women they are trying to date

And the idea that Mastodon is "lukewarm to politics" is hilarious

Flipper 🐬🏳️‍🌈19h ago

@benroyce @futurebird @blogdiva
I shudder to think what their definition of fired up is.

Deb Nam-Krane 18h ago

@flipper 😂 @benroyce @futurebird @blogdiva

Passenger 18h ago

@flipper @benroyce @futurebird @blogdiva

At the risk of making a cheap shot, here's an actual example of politics Jenson got fired up about:

https://social.coop/@scottjenson/116262069519922255

In general though, Jenson does seem to have a specific idea of politics: very influencer-focused, very big-name-focused, quite funding-raising-y. He doesn't use the word "establishment" but that's probably a fair word to use about him. He has selfies from No Kings, which is a joke that I would make about someone except it's true in his case.

And, y'know, not everyone has to be an antifascist streetfighter with a pseudanonymous account posting callouts for real-world illegal actions. Not everyone has to be a squatter punk or a trans gun collector. There's room in this world for people whose politics are as spicy as mayonnaise scraped thin over white bread.

But it's a hell of a stretch to go from "people are lukewarm about influencer-focused big-name fundraising-centred politics" to "...and there is no other sort of politics."

I suspect, ironically, that this is because he lives in a social media filter bubble of his own.

Scott Jenson (@[email protected])

OMG this is BRILLIANT, Bernie Sanders using Claude to make his points for him https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3AtWdeu_G0

social.coop

🍄slow learner, ❤️‍🔥deep feeler 17h ago

One finger pointing out, three pointing back at ourselves.
@flipper @benroyce @futurebird @blogdiva

Jeff Mitchell 19h ago

@benroyce @flipper @futurebird @blogdiva

That one part of the post is all it took for me to discount everything else said. Too bad it was right at the end.

@futurebird @blogdiva

Exactly what I just said.
https://mstdn.social/@lucybeahere/116359145950460183

MFennVT 19h ago

@lucybeahere Same thoughts here. If this guy doesn't think we're into politics, he needs to maybe curate his feed a little better. Follow a few hashtags, you know? Actually interact with the fediverse instead of just bloviating. @futurebird @blogdiva

@MFennVT @futurebird @blogdiva

The funny part is this Scott Jensen guy works with Mastodon! He’s not just a random user!

MFennVT 19h ago

@lucybeahere He claims to anyway. Eugen shut him down early in the thread. @futurebird @blogdiva

MFennVT 18h ago

@lucybeahere My mistake. Eugen does say in that thread that they work together. @futurebird @blogdiva Here's the post where he disagrees: https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/116352812942715569

Yep, I read all that, but thanks for clarifying for everyone out there! It’s helpful for people to see where all this is coming from!

MFennVT 18h ago

@lucybeahere Sure thing! And that conversation is enormous at this point!

Jensen sounded like he wanted Mastodon to be more like Twitter. I think that today he accomplished that. The conversations are everywhere in my TL! I’d like to go back to No Kings Day, please! Lol

MFennVT 18h ago

@lucybeahere Right? Same here. But on the other hand, I love how news gets around on the fedi in general. Even with all of our curated feeds and decentralized control. Kinda disproves his point, I think.

MFennVT 18h ago

@lucybeahere Although, to be honest, I'm not completely sure what his point is anymore, since he spent so many toots backpedaling. ;)

Again, Mastodon working as intended! My people introducing me to new people that they follow, and the following grows organically over time. Way more than I ever had on Twitter.

MFennVT 18h ago

@lucybeahere Same!

Ludwig Vielfrass 18h ago

@lucybeahere @futurebird @blogdiva I came for #music, stayed for the #politics. My reading here is 60% politics, 30% music, 10% cat pix, and 10% shitposts.

Yes, this is more than 100%. There's overlap!

Bully of Bullies, Inc 20h ago

@blogdiva It’s pretty hilarious how he has all this energy to step up for AI journalists, but I didn’t see him anywhere when Black folks were getting harassed off the fedi for years.

Especially considering he has direct contact and influence with the Masto team.

Julian Fietkau 20h ago

@are0h @blogdiva Scott only joined the Mastodon team in I think late 2024. AFAIK he was one of the driving forces behind involving Black users in the co-design of Mastodon's quote post feature, but you'd have to ask him (or someone who was involved, @mekkaokereke I believe?) for the details.

Bully of Bullies, Inc 20h ago

@julian @blogdiva @mekkaokereke Ha, nah. I’m good. I am all to familiar with white men trying to tokenize Black folks to look ‘progressive.’

secretsloth 19h ago

@julian @blogdiva whether he did or not is irrelevant to this thread. As *this* thread points out, his premise and his actual words are racist. Having done something in the past to advocate for something that a lot of Black folks on here wanted, does not change the fact that he was really racist just now. Lots of people pointed it out in *his* thread, which would be a better place to ask your question. Don't stand up for racists in nonwhite people's mentions. Don't even appear to. It's rude.

@blogdiva I sincerely hope he isn’t actually given much time of day by the “mastodon core team”.

Doodles 20h ago

@blogdiva
Keep up the good work...✌🏾

Pastor of Muppets 20h ago

@blogdiva He seems like a smart guy, but he was such a breathless gee-whiz booster of AI and I burned out and unfollowed. I'm glad I'm following you.

Martin Rundkvist 21h ago

@blogdiva
Such an odd set of basic assumptions. I'm not here to talk about tech and I never follow accounts whose profiles are exclusively about tech.

@mrundkvist @blogdiva
"I never follow accounts whose profiles are exclusively about tech."
I can't believe you would just admit to your bias in public like that 😨🫣😭 /s