Our own PolitiBunny now has a Mastodon account, as she detailed in a recent VIP post. Mastodon seems to be where all the journalists who think Twitter is going under any minute now have set up alternate accounts, on Mastodon’s @journa.host server. However, as we learned earlier Monday, the @journa.host server is getting blocked by a bunch of people as the server “quickly gained a reputation for transphobia.”
Columnist and editor Heidi N. Moore says one of the irritating things about Mastodon is how it “enables status-chasing journalists to gatekeep their peers.”
Among the many irritating things about Mastodon is that it enables status-chasing journalists to gatekeep their peers by judging whether they have enough clout or are useful to other people's career ladder-climbing. https://t.co/eQzdH3IzCP pic.twitter.com/Tg7CYJtbDk
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) November 20, 2022
That gets cut off; the rest reads: “Now, would we make that decision a month from now? I don’t know. I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to get into specifics, but we’ve had some tricky edge cases. Inherently, it’s tricky.”
Also from that Markup newsletter by Julia Angwin:
Mastodon is a different kind of social network. Unlike Twitter, it doesn’t have a central gatekeeper that can decide who gets to use the platform and what type of content is allowed. Instead, Mastodon is an array of different communities that have all agreed to share a single communication standard.
What that means in practice is that to join Mastodon, you have to join a Mastodon “instance”—essentially a community that hosts a Mastodon server. Each instance has its own vibe, standards for admission, and content rules. Each server can block communications from other servers if they don’t appreciate their style.
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Anyway, a reminder that the moderator of your Mastodon server can read your DMs, and if you find someone is sufficiently invested in gatekeeping and status-chasing to invest time in excluding members of their own industry based on clout and perceived importance…hmm…maybe not.
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) November 20, 2022
Moore’s thread goes on, and it’s a good one, but it inspired FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver to notice that all of the hall-monitor types seem to be flocking to Mastodon.
Mastodon seems like a honeytrap for hall-monitor personality types. Honestly if Elon gets all the hall monitors to migrate to Mastodon that might be his greatest contribution toward the betterment of humanity. https://t.co/fwTHX4DNp3
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 20, 2022
NBC News’ “dystopia beat” reporter (we guess that’s kind of what Taylor Lorenz does) Ben Collins swooped in with a zinger:
Don't you have some elections to be wrong about?
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) November 21, 2022
Yeah, NBC nailed the 2016 election.
What’s Collins so salty about? Is he one of the hall monitors?
What could be more fun than a social network consisting entirely of hall monitors!?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2022
Meanwhile on Mastodon. pic.twitter.com/mVuZArT7ef
— Ordy Packard's Amish Turducken Farm (@YoderSecreto) November 20, 2022
🤣🤣💯🎯
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2022
It’s quite a sight watching Nate Silver be the only member of left of center corporate media who is willing to acknowledge realities about it.
— Matt Bilinsky (@mattbilinsky) November 20, 2022
The only reason you weren't locked in a locker in high school is hall monitors.
— Cipher of the Golden Spatula (@snarkylicious) November 21, 2022
My rough take is that it’s an echo chamber.
— Helaine Olen (@helaineolen) November 20, 2022
lol Mastodon
The Tale of Two Platforms
Twitter may yet have some rocky weeks ahead, but one thing is for sure: Mastodon sure as hell ain't gonna replace it
Leftist groupthink panel-led filtration hell vs… speech as it's been for thousands of years, but online
Hmmmmmmmmmmm https://t.co/sswxEHgLWt
— o̲thers̲teve (@othersteve) November 20, 2022
The serious upside to all of this is fucking zombie-brained activist professional useless people such as @ParkerMolloy will presumably quarantine themselves in their own little Mastodon echo chamber where everything is copacetic and bad speech can never hurt you
— o̲thers̲teve (@othersteve) November 20, 2022
This has definite upside potential
— Ohp '100% Real MyMusk™' Sn (@Ohp_Sn) November 20, 2022
We’ll note that Collins hasn’t yet added his Mastodon address to his Twitter bio.
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Update:
Maybe I'm overgeneralizing from a sample of two or three people but, like, the most prominent "misinformation reporters" are both very partisan and very often spread misinformation. The whole category is 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 21, 2022
No, they're generally awful.
— jimtreacher.substack.com (@jtLOL) November 21, 2022
100%
— AG (@AGHamilton29) November 21, 2022
This is one of the most basic and important insights if you want to how understand how the modern media functions.
Basically, anyone calling themselves a "misinformation expert" or "disinformation reporter" is a partisan fraud, trying to make their activism seem scientific: https://t.co/5gbDf2WJoD
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 21, 2022
It's hard to think of any two people in media who are presented as "objective" yet are more obvious, explicit and blatant activists for the Democratic Party than @oneunderscore__ and @BrandyZadrozny. Every word they utter is for that purpose. "Disinformation" is a scam industry.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 21, 2022
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Editor’s Note:
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Related:
Thread about activist (woke) journalists EATING one another on Mastodon ACCIDENTALLY hilarioushttps://t.co/665hwGmbX8
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) November 21, 2022
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