[Air-L] Migration to Mastodon

[Shulman, Stu]

There is a definite learning curve and you are right Dr. Briant that
"leaving" Twitter is difficult. It is like leaving the scene of the most
interesting and widely distributed crime scene in history when you are a
witness and participant. However, as a back-up plan if Twitter goes full
Hellscape Mastodon does work and you can make a Twitter-like bio. Learning
the Mastodon rubrics is taking some time. It took me a while to find my
friend Glen, but we did it together. I also just found and followed you. I
am hosted on an Irish instance just poking around. One of the first things
I learned is that promoters of the concept want you to set up your new
accounts on smaller or mid-sized instances. The size of the instance does
not determine the scope of your network. As I understand it, the
design distributes computing and increases network resilience in a manner
that comports with distributed computing philosophy. In essence it gets
harder to go all Elon Musk if we do social media in a fully distributed
rather than centralized manner. It is a pretty cool idea congruent with 20+
year-old ideas about digital citizenship. I am here:
https://mastodon.ie/web/@stu.

On Sun, Nov 6, 2022 at 4:36 AM Dr. Emma Briant via Air-L <
air-l at listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I wanted to highlight an issue to the community if I may relating to our
> transition to Mastodon, which I think could have implications for diverse
> and emerging scholar expertise. Of course Mastodon isn’t a replacement
> Twitter, it operates differently, but it may well replace it in the daily
> lives of many of us.
>
> Twitter has helped many previously obscure scholars, experts and scientists
> to get their voices out in a way previously not possible. I’m a little
> worried the way Mastodon works may not enable visibility as easily for
> those who aren’t already *known* in the same way, and potentially, in this
> aspect, more readily reproduce inequality.
>
> https://twitter.com/emmalbriant/status/1589170894303551488?s=46&t=GuaOniF5NwGVCSM-r9kPFg
> https://mastodon.online/@emmalbriant/109295686807615811
> The issue is when people follow… in notifications Mastodon doesn’t seem to
> show follower bios like it does in Twitter. An apparently small thing, but
> I think it has important implications as I try to explain in the thread.
>
> Grateful for your thoughts.
> Emma
> --
> Dr Emma L Briant
>
> Owner: Maven of Persuasion LLC
> Fellow at Central European University's Center for Media, Data and Society
> Associate at University of Cambridge, Center for Financial Reporting &
> Accountability
> Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emmalbriant
> Website: www.emma-briant.co.uk
>
> Author of: *Propaganda and Counter-Terrorism: Strategies for Global
> Change *from
> Manchester University Press
> Co-Author of: *Bad News for Refugees* with Prof. Greg Philo and Dr. Pauline
> Donald from Pluto Press.
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-- 
Dr. Stuart W. Shulman
Founder and CEO, Texifter
Editor Emeritus, *Journal of Information Technology & Politics*