The big story occupying space in my mind (and on this blog) is the #TwitterMigration. As Twitter grows troubled and troubling, “Fediverse” technologies in general and Mastodon in particular are successfully attracting many users and providing a pleasant experience. Everyone is wondering out loud whether Mastodon can take the strain and whether it can provide cool new features. What we haven’t been discussing are two ethical questions: First, is it OK to bail out of Twitter? And if bailing out, is Mastodon a acceptable place to land? Bye, Twitter (OK?) · I confess that this discussion caught me by surprise but I’m glad it did, it’s eye-opening. The voices are those of Black and disabled people (mostly the former) arguing that Twitter has fueled an important flowering of their culture (the hashtag is #BlackTwitter) and become important as a refuge, a meeting place, and a source of power. I’m as white as can be, so probably not your best source on the subject, but I felt educated by Shamira Ibrahim’s Can Black Twitter Ever Really Die? ¶
Apparently “ethics” is now “staying in a cesspool because other people prefer it”.
Fuck that noise. If that’s the new definition of “ethics” I’ll be the most unethical motherfucker alive.
Twitter should be obliterated from existence, as all comercial social media should be. It might once have played an important rol on bringing together communities of opressed people, but beliving that it’s a tool for emancipation is deceving yourself, at best.
It’s not the first text I read that says something along those lines and that makes me sad. Don’t forget that things like Twitter promote hate speach in the name of money. (Or instagram knowing how harmfull it is for teenagers and not giving a crap…)
One must be pretty naïve to belive things like that, use decentralised plataforms owned and operated by the people.
I also like to see Twitter go down and dissappear. The criticism about Mastodon by Black people has indeed been seen before, and I do not understand it. They find the quote reply very important, but some journalists also wrote that they think they cannot do without it. In reply to that I saw this web link on Mastodon : https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/20673 (a long read) which shows that Mastodon no longer does not want to have the same feature as on Twitter but is looking at a more safe alternative.
I don’t get how there can be an ethical question here either.
The only ethical question should be to the detriment of twitter or about specific instances with questionable rules but not about the whole mastodon platform, let alone the fediverse.
It goes to show that many people don’t understand what Mastodon, and by extension, the Fediverse is. They don’t understand about Instances. I remember reading an article some time ago that said people in certain parts of the world thought Facebook was the internet. I think this is similar.
I’m a proponent of free markets, but I also think that social media should not be provided by them. Destroying Twitter and Reddit alone won’t be enough, since Facebook or new companies etc. will replace the void left by them. Even Mastodon is a bit of a risk, since there’s essentially nothing that protects from a single large entity pooling up resources, using marketing tactics etc., taking a majority of the network and then doing the good old embrace and extinguish move.
This needs global legislature to be fixed, and unfortunately the world does not seem to be moving towards a direction where that sort of thing could be achieved. EU is the best actor in this space currently, and that’s not a high hurdle. And EU is probably not taking over the world.
@vekku @SrEstegosaurio A free market exists only as a concept in the mind - in the real world they are shacked and regulated to prevent the worst excesses of greed and inhumanity. “Free Markets” have NO business providing aged care, child care or any other sort of care or basic utilities. They also should not be providing news and information where that information is manipulated by an algorithm more interested in profit than the truth. #invisiblehand #freemarket #adamsmith
It should be noted that the linked article concluded that, in the authors’ opinion, moving to Mastodon IS ethical, despite vasuous issues.and concerns which the article catalogs.
Though it would seem we overwhelming and vehemently disagree with those that suggest there might be unethical to abandon them on the birdsite, we also should not just dismiss those who do think or feel that. Especially marginalized people trying to express the good thing they found.
It seems pretty clear that most humans do not prioritize “freedom” very highly compared to comfort and familiarity. And I can see a logic where, unfortunaltely, marginalized people whose lives tend towards experiencing more discomfort than most would be especially resistance to letting go of what little comfort they have found.
And the network effect is biggest boss to overcome (as all the vc feuled corps know very well).
All we can do is keep trying to make a place that is useful enough and iteratively more comfortable. If we care about these people, and the concept of decentralized freedom.for all. And we need to seriously listen and consider, and maybe even compromise, as the linked article has tried to do.
All we can do is keep trying to make a place that is useful enough and iteratively more comfortable. If we care about these people, and the concept of decentralized freedom.for all. And we need to seriously listen and consider, and maybe even compromise, as the linked article has tried to do.
Thanks for your insightful comment
tl;dr Mastodon is apparently unethical because one particular community likes Twitter more. What a bunch of nonsense.
Did you read the article? That’s literally the opposite of his conclusion.
To be honest I didnt read it to the end after encountering such a ridiculous argument being seriously considered.
I think it’s important to take arguments like these seriously, especially when they are coming from minority groups whose needs I may not be familiar with. Far too often, I see concepts like privilege, structural racism, and racist infrastructure being dismissed as ridiculous by the conservatives outright when they’re well grounded in reality.
This is like telling someone to stay in an abusive relationship because other people like your partner. No, find something that works well for you. Your true friends will adapt.
Is your username homage to The Condor Trilogy ? :D
Yes, legend of the condor heroes is easily one of the best series I ever watched. Sadly the two other series have much weaker storylines in my opinion.
uh… what
This has nothing to do with ethics, the difference, if ethics can be argued, is the ethics of the one who provides a social network, which in the centralized ones of a big company converges to zero, while in the decentralized ones like Mastodon, it depends on the one who provides a instance, very different between them, there will be unethical and others more. The rest is up to the users themselves.
Today I noticed this : https://blacktwitter.io/about Hopefully that will help more Black people to move away from Twitter
