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.

🧵…

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.

🧵…

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

🧵…

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

🧵…

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

🧵…

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 🧵…

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

🧵…

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.

🧵…

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… 🧵…

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.

🧵…

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.

/🧵