@jeff @matthewkeys Someone creates a server designed for journalists with some sort of vetting process. Then other servers block that server for doing the things that journalists do: Looking for stories, building audiences, and occasionally publishing information and points of view that others disagree with.
This kind of mentality will make it harder for Mastodon to compete as a space for public discourse.
We can't have the benefits of the Fourth Estate without a little sunshine.
@stanwise @jeff @matthewkeys Genuinely frustrating to see people with brand new accounts telling everyone how Mastodon should work instead of taking the time, making the effort, to understand how it does work.
@DanBC @jeff @matthewkeys I don't know what to tell you except that it's genuinely frustrating to see others assume that people with new accounts know nothing about how online communities work. I guess I missed the sign stating there was a probationary period during which users' ideas are automatically considered invalid.
@stanwise @jeff @matthewkeys So far you've just said stuff that's been discussed pretty heavily in the past, and you've shown no awareness of those discussions. You're also not aware of why journa.host is being blocked which makes this convo a bit weird. You're pointing to trivialities and ignoring the big stuff. [1/2]
@stanwise @jeff @matthewkeys Virulant transphobic journos were joining journa.host, and people raised the alarm, and initially journa.host said they wouldn't ban until transphobia happened on Mastodon. That's fine, they can do that, but it means they're going to get rapidly defederated by other instances who need to protect their users. [2/2]
@DanBC @jeff @matthewkeys You mean I didn’t illustrate any awareness of prior discussions in the four sentences I typed on my phone about the topic at hand while waiting for a meeting to start? I suppose I concede the point.
You say I’m pointing to trivialities and ignoring the big stuff. I disagree, and the reason is that I believe whatever happened on Mastodon prior to Musk destroying Twitter matters less than what happens now. 1/
@DanBC @jeff @matthewkeys Before, it was fine if Mastodon was a loosely connected series of gated communities, each one devoted to particular topics and enforcing certain behavioral norms. If the communities didn’t want to talk to each other anymore for whatever reason, it didn’t really matter. Mastodon was another Discord – a great place for forming homogenous, safe communities. However, it wasn’t very relevant. CNN wasn’t reporting on what public figures were writing on Mastodon. 2/
@DanBC @jeff @matthewkeys But now that Musk is destroying Twitter by ruining the verification system and giving a free pass to people who have harassed and threatened others, Twitter’s role as a marketplace of ideas is waning. It is losing relevance. That relevance originally grew, in part, due to the actions of journalists. 3/
@DanBC @jeff @matthewkeys Public figures showed up on Twitter, and then the journalists showed up both to report what was said on Twitter and also to spread their work to a growing audience. (That’s a public service, by the way, in a democracy. An informed public makes better decisions in the voting booth.) 4/
@DanBC @jeff @matthewkeys Mastodon currently stands as a platform that could potentially perform the role that Twitter is abandoning. In my short weeks on this platform, the potential to perform this role seems to be met with near universal acclaim. People here are encouraging others to join. People are happy when public figures and respected journalists show up. People who come here seem to be happy to have a place that isn’t (and could never be) subject to Musk’s whims. I’m one of them. 5/
@DanBC @jeff @matthewkeys Given this new spotlight and new potential for growth, the norms about which servers get banned and why might need some re-evaluation. These norms aren’t rules, of course, so they only work if the people who run the major servers agree to them. 6/
@DanBC @jeff @matthewkeys If the growth in relevance is going to continue, Mastodon is going to need the support of the journalists. We need them to provide us with educational articles, and we need them to boost the discourse that takes place on Mastodon to new audiences. 7/
@DanBC @jeff @matthewkeys Having a server that performs some sort of verification of journalists is a HUGE boost to Mastodon legitimacy. That’s a big deal. However, having network-wide norms that make it likely users of that server will be cut off from great swaths of Mastodon seriously undercuts the value of that journalism server. 8/
@DanBC @jeff @matthewkeys Because I’ve worked in media, I feel pretty confident that journalists are going to abandon this place quickly if they can be cut off from significant portions of Mastodon users just for practicing journalism. (Believe it or not, providing a space for opposing viewpoints is key to journalism ethics.) 9/
Oh, come on. "Providing a space for opposing viewpoints" doesn't include platforming any opinion that wanders in, however odious.
It's not "key to journalism ethics" to pretend that Nazis, or racists, or transphobes, need to be given "space".
Stop digging, man. :)
An... interesting "guess" on your part.
The people who run individual mastodon servers are going to decide which other servers to federate with based on their own standards and opinions.
If some server full of journalists, or anyone else, behaves in a way that annoys the people running enough other servers, it will get defederated.
If "just practicing journalism" has that effect, so much the worse for "just practicing journalism". Perhaps it needs some rethinking.
@ceoln @DanBC @jeff @matthewkeys I'll admit I haven't read the column, but because it was approved by the NY Times, I'm guessing it met journalistic standards. Regardless, just because the time published it doesn't mean you ban the server doing the most to verify journalists.