#twitter #Socialmedia #uspol

You don't have to read that ludicrous WaPo column ( I won't link to it) on #Mastodon by perpetual idiotic and 💩take haver, Megan McArdle. Instead read this Paste Magazine piece about her wherein they clearly explain that her takes and columns can logically only be explained by oafishness 👇🏾

pastemagazine.com/politics/meg

twitter #SocialMedia

@ross EFF's first Senior Fellow for Decentralization, with an excellent piece rebutting the nonsense that the WaPo columnist wrote about #mastodon and the #fediverse 👇🏾

"The question isn't if the fediverse can replace Twitter, but if protocols can usurp platforms in our life online. With enough momentum the fediverse can be the fabric of the social web, incorporating existing systems like Tumblr and Medium and outright replacing stragglers."

eff.org/deeplinks/2023/02/brea

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@alaric

Another excellent piece by @pluralistic rebutting the premature "death" of #Mastodon and the #fediverse pieces being pushed by journalists who seem to either have an agenda or are actively misleading their readers due to their ineptitude and laziness.

"actual usage of the Fediverse continues to increase month by month" 👇🏾
doctorow.medium.com/of-course-

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@alaric @pluralistic As an illustration of this point -- I originally created this account int 2018 (I forget the impetus...maybe some scandal with Facebook). At the time, I didn't find much content that interested me, and I wasn't really into micro-blogging anyway, so my account sat idle for a few years. When Musk took over Twitter and drove off many people, I came back to Mastodon and found a lot more activity and have stayed active myself. I've also heard that some big institutions are exploring adding more support for Mastodon- they move slowly by nature, but I am looking forward to when they come fully on board.

@DecaturNature @alaric @pluralistic ditto, though it took some searching to find my old accounts (see notes in profile)

@DecaturNature
"I've also heard that some big institutions are exploring adding more support for Mastodon- they move slowly by nature, " agreed, but I add as an individual, I also move slowly.
I've a Twitter bot posting photos every day that I will eventually convert to post to the fediverse. It will be a while, perhaps a year, before I have the time to code.

@DecaturNature @alaric @pluralistic

The last thing we need is some big institution taking over here and overpowering everyone else. And they will, it's what they do. The beauty of Mastodon is that we have diversity here with a lot of small instances, each with its own character.

@BertL Truly 'taking over' seems unlikely -- ideally, the involvement of big institutions would mean them setting up servers to serve their own communities, like what Medium did. I expect that many big institutions (publishers, universities, etc) would do the same -- just wanting a place to host their own content. Others, like Tumblr, could try to establish mega-instances (analogous to Gmail or Hotmail) but I think that small community instances will still be able to thrive under those circumstances, because they do serve distinct purposes. Email did not have an analogous community structure to it before Gmail became dominant. I'd only get worried if they set up instances that have 'lock in' features -- like not supporting moving of servers.
@alaric @pluralistic

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