Joe Terranova @joeterranova@leftist.network

i think the thing that i'm going to be weirdly obsessed with is that nativity displays where everyone is white and the angels are blonde is white supremacy and your church shouldn't put it out even if it's like the beautiful ones you've had since the 1960s

One of my absolutely favorite phenomena online is when you're trying to learn something about how a framework works at a high level and the documentation is like, "Raxy is a distributed paradigm for computing at-scale utilizing elegant composite and flyweight patterns" and you're like "what the absolute hell" and go on YouTube and some random guy named Tom is like "Raxy is just a way to add numbers quickly if you have over 10 GB of data."

I keep seeing that “first they came for the journalists” sign, and it pisses me off so much, because when they came for muslims, immigrants, and trans people, mainstream journalists normalized it and reported it as “both sides”. Somehow it didn’t count for them until it was happening to them personally, which is *exactly* what the fucking poem was warning against in the first place.

Tired: Tech writers dumping on Mastodon without having ever used it

Wired: Political writers inventing a founder for Mastodon because they can’t read #JohnMastodon

"You don’t say, ‘I’ve done it!’ You come, with a kind of horrible desperation, to realise that this will do.”
– Anthony Burgess, on finishing books

I really despise this idea some people have about the need to stay on Twitter "to fight". To fight what? This isn't a war where ground is won or lost. The platform is wholly and unquestionably owned by the person you're trying to fight against. He has shown he doesn't care about loss of advertisers, loss of respect, loss of users. Twitter is now nothing but his personal alt-right cult. The only valid reason to stay is to assist others in leaving. If you're generating any other forms of content, you're simply enabling him to radicalize *your* userbase.

Every news outlet should stand up a Mastondon instance for their reporters & staff.

It’ll be great to see GivennameFamilyname@mastodon.famousnewspaper.com or whatever domain they want to use.

Built in verification. Every reporter for the Washington Post on a washpo domain. Every reporter for the New York Times on an NYTimes domain. Etc, etc.

Plus the “local” feed for each instance becomes a feed of all the posts from that institution mixed together — providing extra discovery.

As right-wing extremists are re-platformed everywhere from Twitter to Mar-a-Lago, it’s more important than ever that we hold our journalists, researchers, & others to high standards of accountability when it comes to reporting on extremism and extremists. We need journalists who will tell us the truth, not stake out a position in the middle of two unequal sides. I keep coming back to this quote about reporting on the weather, but it was missing something — so I modified it to make it complete.

Annoying how it's assumed that when women say we "can't find anyone to date" that we mean "no-one will date us", when what we actually mean is that we can't find anyone we'd WANT to date, because he's not on dating apps, and he's 1916 Rising socialist revolutionary James Connolly

The arguments for remaining on twitter to “fight” remind me of the gambling adage that the house always wins. “Fighting” there is like gambling and thinking you’ll eventually beat the house. But even if you win $10,000 at the slot machine it’s because it’s in the casino’s bigger interests to give you $10,000.

A viral post from a progressive helps prop up an increasingly reactionary company. @jeffjarvis

As you're considering the other new Twitter alternatives, ask yourself if you really want to go to another corporate entity that could end up being just as bad as Twitter and Facebook. Algorithmic sites, by design, reward hate and outrage. You're jumping into another fire.

We have a rare and fleeting chance to build something different right now.

I'm choosing to spend my time trying to make this place succeed — helping new users and saving my best content for here.

A gentle reminder to us all, but especially our growing #trans community & any #ally settling in here that IF you see transphobic comments (yes I've had a couple too)

REPORT - report them, then block

FRIENDS - moderators and admins are your friends/allies here & will remove them in minutes

SAFE - you are safe here, and can roam the #Fediverse freely. It's the TERFs & GCs who get locked in a 'closet' at spinster. xyz

That's it, no more to say 💜 #TwitterMigration #Transgender

Mastodon tips (brief)

1. Server choice - tricky
2. Add a pic and bio
3. I prefer 'Advanced web interface'
4. And the 'Light' theme
5. Listen to long-time users
6. Tip your server admins
7. Hashtags pretty important
8. Put Alt text on pics
9. Use Content Warning if in doubt
10. Pin introduction post
11. Do some boosting
12. Follow interesting people
13. Hashtags can be followed too
14. DMs not secure
15. Be respectful
16. Thank you, people who run this

#mastodon #tips #MastodonTips #tootorial

Here's that conversation yet again.

For the past 20 years, the web has been deliberately centralized—creating tech monopolies.

We as a culture let it happen because we prized convenience and "free" above all else—giving away our personal data in the process.

This created the conditions for surveillance capitalism.

As this was happening, the media gave up their rights as news publishers in favor of "reach".

This is why Twitter happened.

Massive shout out to all the server people getting inundated. Newbies you don’t get milked or marketed by Mastodon. Donations to your sever admins are love 🥰 right now if you can afford it.

earth: I’m dying

humans: I’m sorry you feel that way

Keeping Mastodon non-toxic & benevolent requires total community buy-in when it comes to moderation.

Yes, we have mods + admins. But we must also habitually practice individual moderation using the robust safety tools at our disposal.

This means blocking clear-cut trashbags AND reporting them to admins

This means also reporting trashbags to the trashbag's own home instance admins.

It means calling out bad actors early and often & sharing information via #FediBlocks & boosts.

Following someone who boosts a lot of stuff, but you only really care about their original posts?

You can hide their boosts in the settings