TLDR: Mastodon is very white, male, status quo, global north, and designed in a way to limit its potential for use in social movements.

Mastodon feels very different from Twitter, deliberately. It is truly like Live Journal. It is about people who are happy with their social circle and who think of virality and discoverability as a problem. They just want to communicate with the people they know, and limit other things. Ironically, it is more like a private gathering than a public space.

in this ep of #OnTheMedia it's suggested that #BlackLivesMatter or #MeToo movements wouldn't have existed without virality & context collapse available on Twitter.

i have to disagree.
👉 social movements are flexible things & adapt to different media environs. these movements were shaped by Twitter architecture, not determined by it
👉 these movements in particular may have been *more* successful if they didn't have to depend on nonconsensual virality & context collapse

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-mastodon-may-take-twitters-weary

new guest post with Sandra Ley and Cassy Dorff at Political Violence at a Glance on threats to journalists: https://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2022/12/07/how-violence-against-journalists-affects-the-news/

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"Our study suggests that journalists in Mexico are taking actions to protect themselves and allow them to continue to report on crime. These protection strategies seem to allow for greater freedom of speech and a higher level of detail when reporting about violent, non-state armed actors."

@politicalscience @communicationscholars @violence #polisci #research