Mastodawn

RE: https://mastodon.social/@joepbc/116538636210023270

Strong disagree. Technology is a convenient scapegoat for wealth concentration, racism, and misogyny, all of which exist separate from tech.

Eg, Nigerians are still dancing, getting married, and having kids. There is no global birthrate crisis. That's a made up term.

Black and brown people are still meeting on dating apps and using all the same technology. Young Black people use social media to share videos of themselves dancing. That's a huge part of what social media is.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FiccIGppFOo

The problem is not technology. Just like the problem is not venture capital.

The problem is that most of the technology you use, is owned and run by people that are publicly and vocally against democracy. The problem with VC, is that much of the money under management is controlled by people that write papers expressing their explicitly sociopathic and genocidal philosophies.

The problem is the excuses we make for racist and misogynistic little gremlins.

The problem is that too much of the world's wealth is tied up in the accounts of people that don't want to have children (which is fine!) and that hate other people's children (not fine).

Whether or not AI or social media or any other technology exist, these problems persist.

Some people think that venture capital is a fundamentally evil business structure. I disagree.

Thought experiment:
If you could press a button tomorrow, that would cause 50% of the entire population of the continent of Africa to die within 5 years😮, but would 50X your profits and create dozens of trillion dollar companies, and help humanity become interplanetary 10 years earlier, would you press it?

If you're on this weird little Mastodon thing reading this, then you are most likely:
1) A technologist of some sort
2) Not a genocidal maniac

So you would of course say no.

Some of you suspect that I'm going to *imply* that many VCs would say yes. But I'm not going to imply anything. I don't have to. Because many of these VCs have written papers and blog posts under their real names, celebrating the fact that they believe that it's wrong *not* to press that button.🤦🏿‍♂️

The problem with VC is neither the profit motive, nor the business structure.

The problem is that the vast majority of the funds that our entire society uses to solve hard problems, are controlled and allocated by people that believe that it is their duty to create new buttons like the one above, and then mash it repeatedly.

All I'm saying is that if you believe that your problems are caused by:

"1) technologists, 2) that are genocidal maniacs, 3) and that allocate most of society's resources"

then maybe focus on the "genocidal maniac" part, or the "most of society's resources" part, before the technology part.

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 1d ago

#socialMedia didn't invent #bigotry, but it turbocharged it

1. a bigot can be their true selves online with few consequences

2. moderation is a cost. say "freeze peach", gut the mod dept, and save $

3. "don't feed the trolls"? outrage means clicks and eyeballs, good engagement metrics. for-profit social media is incentivized to push bigotry

so fuck social media?

nope

clean it the fuck up

luddite mental gymnastics won't make social media disappear

the problem

is bigotry

Yup. With one clarification: social media objectively, unequivocally, reduced bigotry.

I'm a nerd. I went to a fancy prep school, then a fancy liberal arts college, then work with computers. I'm a classic nerdy jock. I don't do hard drugs, I don't steal I don't get in trouble. I didn't even drink in high school. Super square!

But I started getting pulled over and harassed by cops starting from age 12, because I'm a Black boy.

Before social media, no one that wasn't Black believed me about my experiences. Now, after social media, people believe it.

Before social media, no one believed Black people when we said how often cops lie and plant evidence. Now, after social media, people believe it.

No one believed Black people about how many evil, racist, white ladies there are, being racist and attacking Black people and kids, and trying to get us killed by cop or vigilante. Now, after social media, people believe it.

Elon bought Twitter, in large part because racists are mad at how effective social media is at calling racists out on their nonsense.

@mekkaokereke @benroyce Also phone cameras? Unless that's what you mean by social media?

@nomdeb @benroyce

Both.

Phone cameras and camcorders existed before social media, and it wasn't enough. Even Rodney King was viewed as an isolated incident of how rogue cops act, and Caroline Bryant was a rogue example of white women trying to murder Black men by pretending to be harmed. It wasn't until social media that people could see how widespread the issue was.

Before social media, video of racist police abuse of Black people could only reach the masses through the news. And the news was actively complicit in hiding this truth. Every major newspaper in the US knew that Black people were telling the truth, and knew that cops lie constantly. And every major newspaper in the US lied about it and covered it up. Evil, unjustifiable behavior.

Which is why social media is much more important than newspapers for civil rights, and it's not close. And why video evidence without a distribution channel doesn't drive change.

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦1d ago

Media implies centralized editorial selection and control. Twitter attempted to cherry pick just the advertising income model of media, without the centralized editorial part, and it didn't work. That made it vulnerable to the fascist takeover. It being centralized made the fascist takeover attractive.

Zuck's version never was anything but living room fascist to begin with.
@mekkaokereke @nomdeb @benroyce

@osma @nomdeb @benroyce

Didn't work *for you*. Twitter worked great for the Black people that finally had an outlet for highlighting racism.

And advertiser model or no editorial board, are not what made Twitter vulnerable to a fascist takeover. What made Twitter vulnerable to a fascist takeover was the fact that one of the world's fashiest dudes was rich enough to buy Twitter on a whim. Billionaires can and have bought newspapers on a whim too.

I agree that Mastodon isn't as vulnerable to billionaire drunk purchases, as there are too many little pieces to buy. It's like squeezing jello. But again, by percentage, there are more fascists on the Fediverse than on Twitter, and it's not particularly close. And the abuse Black people experience on the Fediverse is worse than on Twitter and in other places. The Fediverse isn't magic.

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦1d ago

I said nothing about whether it worked for *me*, or for Black people. It didn't *work*. They couldn't make it profitable enough to be protected from a fascist takeover.

I also said nothing about the moderation models of fedi. This place has a LOT of designed-in issues, which I've not been shy to talk about.
@mekkaokereke @nomdeb @benroyce

@osma @nomdeb @benroyce

If the definition of "work" that you are using is "profitable enough to prevent a fascist takeover," then no publicly traded company can work. So it's a statement more on capitalism and publicly trade companies than about Twitter in particular.

Maybe that's the point that you're making? You're focusing on the attractiveness of a centralized target?

I'm not trying to be argumentative. I think we agree on most of it, but I want to make sure that I understand you correctly.

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦1d ago

I could name a number of long-term profitable publicly traded companies that have been able to avoid (as well as resist, and even actively block) takeovers. Nevertheless, in the case of Twitter, that is a sidetrack. Over its history, Twitter was a capital-destroying enterprise, yet because it was a media, with ability to excert editorial control over content, it was attractive for those who seek such control - eg, fascists. That's the nature of most media.
@mekkaokereke @nomdeb @benroyce

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦1d ago

To be clear, my argument is not that centralized enterprise is necessarily bad, or that capitalism is necessarily bad, or that technology is. But what is bad, every time, is allowing *anyone*, whether that's Elon, Orban, Goebbels or the New York Times, to excert editorial control over the public (social) conversation. There must never be one "town square". Media MUST be a collection of competing voices.
@mekkaokereke @nomdeb @benroyce

@osma @nomdeb @benroyce

Profitability cannot stop a fascist takeover. Only valuation can. If a publicly traded company gets a takeover offer large enough, they have a fiduciary responsibility to consider it. They will probably have to put it to the board. If the board says yes, then they have to sell.

The main way a publicly traded company can avoid this, is by making themselves more expensive so that they don't get an offer. Puffer fish are harder to swallow. KKR stuff.

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦23h ago

Why do you insist on arguing about a sidetrack?
@mekkaokereke

First of all, this is my thread, and my mentions. I decide what's main track and sidetrack.

Now that we've cleared that up: the fact that Twitter was effective for combating the harms that I want to talk about are important to me. Mastodon is not effective at those things, because there are not enough Black people here. But there could be.

Mastodon not being attractive as an acquisition target has nothing to do with whether or not there is or is not algorithmic content viewership here or editorial control. It is because even if there were 1000 algorithms and 1000 editors, they would all be independently owned. We agree on the decentralized point. I've already said that.

But we don't agree on what makes a platform vulnerable to fascist takeover.

As in, even if every major instance on Mastodon agreed to a single editor standard tomorrow, it would still not be as vulnerable as Twitter, because everyone could switch away from that the day after if they chose to. And because Mastodon is not a publicly traded company with a fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder returns.

If I email Eugen and Renaud tomorrow, and show them definitive proof that Mastodon is unlikely to generate $10B over the next 5 years, but that if he takes my $10B, me and my fashy friends will return that to shareholders within 2 years, Renaud can just laugh in my face, tell me to get stuffed, and block my number. He won't be sued later for not considering the offer. This has nothing to do with Mastodon being a media or not.

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦18h ago

Okay then. Do you know how many times in its history was Twitter able to post a positive earnings result and how much capital it destroyed while publicly listed?

Twice in ten years and approx - 1.8 billion $. That's what made it vulnerable. No one wanted to compete with Elon's ketamine induced crazy bid. Not even Elon himself.

Did you know that Netflix, meanwhile, did fight off a hostile takeover by Carl Icahn?

Did you know Paramount was fought over in a bidding war?
@mekkaokereke

OK, I'm disengaging because we're not going to agree on this, and because we've reached the weird part of the conversation where you're trying to 'splain specific corporate takeover attempts and their successful defenses to me, when the executives that defended against those takeovers are personal friends of mine.

Be well.

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦18h ago

So you did know that profitability does lead to valuation and makes a public company defensible. I did suspect as much. I hope we still do agree that competing voices on a level playing field matter. Be well.
@mekkaokereke

No it doesn't.

Profitability != valuation.

Amazon. OpenAI. Tesla.

I'll let Russ Hanneman explain it.🤡
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAdXyPYKQo

OK, I'm really going now. I'll let you have the last word.

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