Unsurprising sympathy for and identification with the far right from Ottawa cops but none of this takes away from the fact that Premier Ford held back the provincial police from getting involved (or intent to undermine a Black police chief).
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/biased-ottawa-police-intelligence-harmed-its-ability-contain-freedom-convoy-say-security-analysts-1.6129384
'Biased' Ottawa police intelligence harmed its ability to contain 'Freedom Convoy,' say security analysts
Declassified intelligence information shows the Ottawa Police Service may have hampered its own ability to contain the Freedom Convoy by relying on its own analysis while dismissing crucial threat assessments from outside agencies.
Some communities are used to having to fight very hard to be heard and have their voices respected. Some people are carrying trauma with them and the new loss of a beloved space can compound that trauma and sense of being not only displaced but unplaced. We all need to feel we belong somewhere, that there's a place for us that not only tolerates our existence and expression of self but welcomes and rejoices in it. People are messy, myself included, the best we can do is be kind to each other.
For groups that are often misunderstood, ignored, censored and oppressed by the state and dominant/mainstream culture, shared safe spaces take on additional meaning (even public spaces). They're where people can breathe more easily, talk without being guarded, can expect to be understood and heard, to not have to constantly tailor to avoid offense that may lead to being harmed. They're also spaces for unbridled joy and play. People lose a lot when spaces change, we see this play out in many ways
Humans build community, it's what we do as a social species. (Other social species build community too, we're not different in that way, we just have more sophisticated technologies, for better and worse.) When any meeting space collapses, be it physical or virtual, there is the potential for community to splinter and dissolve. Even if a new space is found and all the same people find it, the community will still be changed because spaces also shape interactions and how we live within them.
I'm starting to wonder how much of the toxicity on Twitter (and that's leaked out into the real world) was because Twitter was the platform of choice for mainstream new media who now almost exclusively use a tabloid clickbait style journalism approach and appear to have adopted it's very exploitative ethos as well. Rupert Murdoch had a lot to do with importing this to the US via the NYPost and FoxNews, after he and Robert Maxwell (yes, Ghislaine's dad) pretty much cornered the UK media market.
#AaronSwartzDay I may just log into my Diaspora account today as a symbolic act of memory.
Basically I have no interest at being broadcast at or attempts to manipulate me via journalistic hot takes and sensationalism. Twitter was good for citizen journalism and independent journalists, I'm not sure it was for MSM reporting. Lots of the MSM reporters there were busy taking more than they gave (using Twitter to find stories, taking people's posts and using them in news stories without consent instead of actually doing any reporting, etc).
Most of the news I went to Twitter for was first person accounts and direct reports from journalists/citizens on the ground. I'd follow specific journalists doing good work or covering specific interests of mine. It wasn't to read push notifications from MSM journalists or to watch their drama. I get my regular news from news sites I trust—public broadcasters like CBC/ABC-Australia and specific publications. I'd follow a publication's server. I like my news cold.
A thought about the fediverse, Mastodon and Modern Heroes. In hyper-individualist Modern societies we look for a hero because we're trained to believe in lone geniuses to justify wealth/power accumulation. We want to be heroes too but wanting to be the main character all the time is a very narcissistic way to approach life and it's not actually how anything works. Particularly not the fediverse, which was built by many people working collectively and is run by many people working collectively.
You know, life doesn't have to be a competition, that's a lie capitalism sells us to make sure we don't start cooperating because it needs our loneliness to sell us stuff we don't need. Sure, some competition can be fun but being ruthlessly hyper-competitive is extremely antisocial and ultimately depressing, especially for a social species like us humans. While people can still be antisocial and competitive on open source networks, they're not rewarded by the system for it like on Twitter.
