[Air-L] Migration to Mastodon

Mon Nov 7 05:53:56 PST 2022

Hello all,

Very interesting discussion, thanks for the insights.

Personally, I am not concerned about an intentional shutdown of academic
twitter more than a defacto shutdown of the voices who make it diverse and
interesting. It sounds like we can expect a loss of visibility of any tweet
from someone who isn't paying $7.99/month for a blue check, which might
mean losing visibility of a lot of academics and voices from civil society
and low- and middle-income countries.

Second there's an ethical consumerism question - I personally would have a
hard time justifying paying that money to a company that had just fired its
human rights and algorithmic bias teams, as well as apparently most of the
staff in Africa and Asia.

Thirdly, there's the prospect of a Twitter that may become increasingly
hostile to women and people of color - like it wasn't already - but even
more so, given that the new approach to content moderation is apparently
going to be to assume that everyone who pays $8 a month will not engage in
hate speech. That's an assumption not clearly grounded in evidence...

Let's see how it goes - if this results in a de facto breakup of big tech
in favor of smaller spaces, maybe that would be healthier in the long run.
I look forward to learning about and experimenting with Mastodon...

best
Meg

On Mon, 7 Nov 2022 at 14:47, Richard Forno via Air-L <
air-l at listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

>
> It's not Musk's views per se that's driven me from Twitter, but that's a
> major reason, sure.
>
> I have a hard time *relying* on a communications platform run by a
> company now fully engaged in the proverbial "move fast, break things"
> mentality based on whatever singular whims or rage cycle its owner is in
> at the time a decision is made.   To wit:  They are now asking people
> just fired to come back, b/c nobody knew they were integral to the
> features Musk wanted to develop.  (Were it me, I'd say sure, but double
> my salary.)   He's also reversed other polices and views that he
> preached -- he was against permabans until Kathy Gifford parodied him
> over the weekend, so she's banned.  He's also said other people not
> 'clearly identifying' as parody accounts would be perma-banned.  That's
> a far cry from his views about how the company handled other perma-bans
> in recent years.  The entire company -- and platform -- now feels rather
> unstable in many ways, and I feel sorry for the many serfs still there
> who will endure such chaos .... and it's only been a week!
>
> Heck, if I wanted to interact on a platform conducting a perpetual beta
> test[1], I'd use something from Google.
>
> -- rick
>
> [1] either technical or managerial
>
>
> On 7 Nov 2022, at 3:06, Andrew Lowenthal via Air-L wrote:
>
> > Wonderful to see so many people (re)embracing open
> > source/non-corporate social media etc. Ultimately alternatives that
> > don't place us at the whim of one oligarch or the other are the best
> > solution.
> >
> > One question however - the thrust of the Musk criticism is that he
> > will be too libertarian. With that in mind, where does the assumption
> > come from that he will shut off access to academic twitter? Has there
> > been a statement? It would seem to go against his anti-censorship
> > ethos. Or is it more that it would not be in his interest to serve an
> > overwhelmingly left-wing academia?
> >
> > Anything tangible as to known intentions of already concluded Twitter
> > actions would be helpful.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Andrew
> >
> >
> > On 11/7/22 01:28, Paul Levinson via Air-L wrote:
> >> Just followed ISOC on Mastodon -- thanks!
> >>
> >> -- PL
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sun, Nov 6, 2022 at 7:19 PM Joly MacFie <joly at punkcast.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Not that you don't see enough of them already, but ISOC LIVE
> >>> announces go
> >>> out at @jolynyc at mastodon.social
> >>>
> >>> I'm interested to see if EM messes with Twitter live (ex-Periscope)
> >>> which
> >>> I quite like.
> >>>
> >>> Joly
> >>> --
> >>> --------------------------------------
> >>> Joly MacFie  +12185659365
> >>> --------------------------------------
> >>> -
> >>>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> > --
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> >
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-- 
*Sara ("Meg") Davis, Ph.D.*
*Senior researcher,* Digital Health and Rights Project
<https://www.graduateinstitute.ch/DigitalHealth-Rights>
*Pronouns:* She/hers
*What's in a name?* My legal first name is Sara, but most people know me as
Meg (short for Margaret a middle name), either is fine.

*Books:*
*The Uncounted: Politics of Data in Global Health*
<https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/uncounted/C0CC81C0F03D1822D05C13EE31FA0957#fndtn-metrics>
*Song and Silence: Ethnic Revival on China's Southwest Borders
<http://cup.columbia.edu/book/song-and-silence/9780231135269>*

*Ted talk:*
The Uncounted: The people left out of health data
https://www.ted.com/talks/sara_meg_davis_the_uncounted_the_people_left_out_of_health_data