Mike Capern @mikecsees@qoto.org

THIS ➡️ is the smartest discussion you'll find about @Mastodon, the Fediverse, Activity Hub, decentralized social networks, and the future of content moderation.

1. Podcast by @lawfare out today: "Decentralized Social Media and the Great #Twitter Exodus" (https://www.lawfareblog.com/lawfare-podcast-decentralized-social-media-and-great-twitter-exodus)

2. Paper titled "Moderating the #Fediverse: Content Moderation on Distributed Social Media" (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4213674)

Let's talk!

@arozenshtein @klonick @benjaminwittes @RosenzweigP @qjurecic @DavidPriess @jentaub

Some Mastodon thoughts, for bird-site expats (which include myself). I'm aggregating these from posts I've boosted before, so little of this is my own brain.

- There's no algorithm here. That means favoriting/liking doesn't do anything except communicate approval to the OP and others (which is still nice!).

- No algorithm means boosting ("retweeting") is the true method to increase a post's visibility. Do that more than you did on birdsite.

- There's no post-quoting here, and that's by design. Look at quote-tweets on the birdsite; it's a feature primarily used for toxicity.

- There's no direct word-search here either; that means you want to use hashtags to make posts more searchable. This is also intended, since word-searching posts was often used to harass/stalk on the birdsite and elsewhere, so that was left by the wayside here. This also means hashtags are much more a thing here than any of the algorithm-powered sites.

- It's encouraged to put in text descriptions when you post images; a lot of Mastodon users use screen-readers due to various disabilities, and getting an image description read out loud helps them immensely.

- Speaking of screen-readers: using capitalization in your hashtags allows the screen-readers to read them more easily, especially if you're smashing multiple words together. #rockmusic = unreadable. #RockMusic = readable.

- The best way to make threads is to make set your first post as public, but "unlist" all of your replies. This prevents your whole thread from clogging up feeds.

- Content Warnings should be used more liberally here. If you haven't gotten the impression yet, much of Mastodon was built and populated by marginalized groups who were harassed/bullied off of other platforms. This is the culture they built, to respect each other's mental health. It's not a rule, but it's well-appreciated.

- Consider chipping a few bucks towards whomever runs the server you're on; the strain is real, and most server admins were likely paying out of pocket before so don't have an existing donation base. The growth here has been extremely fast, and that means money's needed.

- DMs are just posts with privacy settings. So if you @ someone in a DM, you pull them into the thread. That could be embarrassing.

- Also, no, DMs aren't end-to-end encrypted, but they aren't on Twitter either. Don't use either if you want true privacy.

- Including your Mastodon handle in your birdsite profile will help people find you here; there's a tool (pruvisto.org/debirdify/ is one of them that's used) people can use to pull Mastodon handles from Twitter profile.

- Use the blocking and reporting features liberally, if needed. This should go without saying, but they work, and work well!

- If there's an entire Mastodon server you don't want to hear from, you can block the whole thing too.

- Preferences -> Appearance -> "Slow Mode": this can make larger "Local" feeds and any "Federated" feed much more readable.

I'll reply with some more as I see them, or reply here too. I've only been here 4 days but I'm loving it so far.

Bans on abortion, birth control, trans health care, and same-sex marriage are at stake in today's midterm elections.

Know the stakes, and vote accordingly.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but Greta Thunberg @gretathunberg just joined @Mastodon (!!!) and that kinda makes this the best party I’ve ever been to.

PS: Get serious about climate change! We actually do need this planet. 🌎*

#ClimateChange #climate #Mastodon #BetterSocialMedia

*I’m a geographer and I approve this message.

BREAKING NEWS: In what I believe is the most widespread election monitoring effort it has ever undertaken, the DOJ Civil Rights Division just announced that it will have officials in the field monitoring the polls in 24 STATES on Election Day. This is huge. This is the DOJ being true to its mission. You can find the list of jurisdictions that will be monitored here:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-monitor-polls-24-states-compliance-federal-voting-rights-laws
#Democracy

For #journalists and other #media types trying to find each other:

So far, there are two lists of #twittermigrants. One's at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13No4yxY-oFrN8PigC2jBWXreFCHWwVRTftwP6HcREtA/edit

Please add yourself if you're not on it! The other is at https://github.com/cgseife/mastodonpeople and is biased toward #scicomm journalists, but has numerous others. Feel free to add yourself by starting an issue with your name, affiliation and handle/instance.

Someone posted this in response to everything happening on the bird site because of EM. It seems so apt for our moment, unfortunately.

I know these are just websites and unlike people, they’re replaceable.

But I think it’s ok to grieve for communities & third places, or even norms:

things that provided some comfort & stability we didn’t realize mattered until they were gone. #classics

How to find your #Twitter friends on #Mastodon. https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-find-twitter-friends-on-mastodon/ #TwitterMigration

“I want news organizations to not only set up their own servers but also to start adding share-on-Mastodon buttons to story pages. That will send a message to Elon et al, endorsing an alternative.” — @jeffjarvis https://buzzmachine.com/2022/11/05/hope-for-a-post-musk-net/

@ezralevin @KevinMKruse @popehat @adamdavidson @Emilynussbaum @juddlegum @drvolts @anneapplebaum @MattGertz

See this list of journalists on Mastodon https://forms.gle/dw5gzkA11uxXiGTy5

Roe Roe Roe your vote. Roevember is HERE. Do it for your daughters, your nieces, your sisters, your friends... yourself and your self determination.

#Introduction

An account focused on highlighting the differences in economic outcomes under Democratic and Republican policies, often with #charts.

This project began during the Obama Administration at comebackdecade.tumblr.com (brief bio available there; first chart from that account posted below).

#policy #politics #USpolitics #economy #economicfairness
#healthcare #obamacare #aca #civilrights #campaigns #elections #democrats #news

Someone #onhere said that this place feels like "Linux on the desktop" energy, and I feel that's too pessimistic.

It's some effort to come over, but you really don't need to understand the #Fediverse to log-on. Many people are already here, and the #TwitterMigration has made it really more palatable.

You don't need to touch a terminal. And my god, you don't need to compile your own print drivers.