uspol, deplatforming, mastodon, nazi mention
ugh. Update on this. The Conversation added a link from my writing to a listicle that mentioned Minds, which is a "free speech" social network that has had Nazis using it. I've emailed the editor to see about getting that link changed.
uspol, deplatforming, mastodon
I joined a panel to discuss 'deplatforming' in The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/does-deplatforming-work-to-curb-hate-speech-and-calls-for-violence-3-experts-in-online-communications-weigh-in-153177
My take: Mastodon gets it right
I wrote a chapter for the amazing book "The Cost of Free Shipping: Amazon in the Global Economy". I focused on Amazon's unprecedented global marketshare and economic power, the dominance of its digital platform Amazon Web Services (which powers much of the Fortune 500, the CIA, ICE, & until earlier this week the white-supremacist hotspot Parler), and its numerous privacy-violated technologies (Ring, Alexa, Rekognition). Read it here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348481142_Power_Accrues_to_the_Powerful_Amazon's_Market_Share_Customer_Surveillance_and_Internet_Dominance #SurveillanceCapitalism
Etiquette
Before jumping into someone else's mentions:
✅ Am I being contrarian?
✅ Do I already have a relationship with this person, or am I being inappropriately familiar?
✅ Am I "ironically" doing exactly what this person just said not to do?
✅ Am I derailing another legitimate discussion in order to get on my own favourite hobby-horse or to one-up this person in my knowledge of social issues?
✅ Am I saying "Are you surprised?" when they're disappointed?
✅ Am I providing unsolicited advice?
If people are having feelings about the shift of users to the fediverse and away from capitalist social media, I might recommend this book:
Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media by Sarah T. Roberts (Yale UP, 2019)
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300235883/behind-screen
its helpful in understanding why moderation at Twitter, FB, or another social media site is so terrible, and to understand why content moderation is fundamental to the problems of the internet.
New friends on fedi, welcome!
Nothing bad in particular has happened to precipitate me pointing you in this direction:
https://scholar.social/@bgcarlisle/101652727672205661
But maybe it will help you to think about how replies on here might be received and avoid some potential problems!
uspol
Trump calling his remarks "appropriate" is quite a comedown from his previous favorite adjective, "perfect"
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/12/us/impeachment-trump-25th-amendment#trump-texas-border-wall
uspol
a little happy about how many chuds seem to think "I got caught up in the moment and I am sorry" is enough for an acquittal on federal charges for anyone without megabucks.
I still say we need to fully dismantle the prison state, but if they're intent on getting a firsthand look they're definitely on the right track.
Mention of birbsite founder and bad political alignment
Don't forget
Jack Dorsey is a white supremacist who:
* Verified white supremacists (1)
* Had the ability to identify and remove white supremacists from Twitter for years and never did (2)
* Allowed white supremacists to advertise on Twitter (3)
The fact that they banned Trump doesn't change who he fundamentally is
Twitter isn't good now
_____
1. https://www.newsweek.com/seth-rogen-twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-verifies-white-supremacists-and-doesnt-1007798
2. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/02/twitter-users-switch-profiles-to-germany-to-escape-online-hate.html
3. https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/17/technology/twitter-white-supremacy/index.html
uspol, Mastodon, new blog post
I wrote a post with a thought experiment: what if Donald Trump had joined Mastodon?
https://fossacademic.tech/2021/01/08/PraiseMastodon.html
spoiler: it would not have gone as well for him as his run on Twitter did
EDM creators, want to drive a #Mastodon user insane? Use that Maro koopa-troopa shell sound in your music.
He/Him.
I'm the F Jay Taylor Endowed Research Chair of Communication at Louisiana Tech U.
My research is on the relationship between communication technologies and culture. I've written some books in this vein. My first book, Reverse Engineering Social Media (Temple), was a critique of Facebook before it was cool to critique Facebook.
Weaving the Dark Web (MIT) is a history and ethnography of Tor hidden services, Freenet freesites, and I2P eepsites.
www.robertwgehl.org