Dear Ranjana, Stu and Rob, Thank you so much for your replies! Firstly, I just want to make it clear that I embrace the effort by Aram Sinnreich, Rick Forno and everyone else helping to build a community for us on Mastodon. I am not trying to dissuade anyone from trying it out, particularly given the horrible turn Twitter has taken! I think it's great to have this also available to us. It is good to hear (thanks Ranjana!) that there are other apps that we can use that do enable people to see bios in the notifications and it's wonderful to hear from your experience Rob of it opening up your community. I think the most important message and takeaway is that of awareness that it will be how people *use *it that will determine how well it works for us all? Often people do seem to be approaching it, at first, like they would have done with Twitter, and I am not sure if journalists will all know they would be best, for these reasons, using a different app. I think we may need to spread the word if so! Thank you all for your thoughts!! Emma On Sun, Nov 6, 2022 at 4:50 AM Ranjana Das <r.das@surrey.ac.uk> wrote:

Good to think about these dynamics - especially for issues around in/visibility as you say Emma. A side note - but the Mastodon app I’m using - called Metatext - when it’s notifying me about new followers is always showing up a notification with the follower’s bio. I don’t have a screenshot of the notification - but on my locked screen (I’ve enabled notifications for the moment) - it appears to show the bio if using the Metatext app. Of course you raise other points which aren’t just about this - and mainly about considering how much has been invested into Twitter-as-default for emerging scholars who won’t have an immediate audience elsewhere as other, more visible ones immediately. Not sure what the answer is really…

Sent from Outlook for iOS <https://aka.ms/o0ukef> ------------------------------ *From:* Air-L <air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org> on behalf of Dr. Emma Briant via Air-L <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> *Sent:* Sunday, November 6, 2022 9:26:48 AM *To:* AOIR <Air-L@listserv.aoir.org> *Subject:* [Air-L] Migration to Mastodon

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://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Femmalbriant%2Fstatus%2F1589170894303551488%3Fs%3D46%26t%3DGuaOniF5NwGVCSM-r9kPFg&data=05%7C01%7Cr.das%40surrey.ac.uk%7C8e8e922617b94cc76c3408dabfdb05a9%7C6b902693107440aa9e21d89446a2ebb5%7C0%7C0%7C638033244663180795%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=uJMGKg1HAHwLBTL8BeHAdfGJQTpzJR%2FP4%2BRkjH5W6kA%3D&reserved=0

https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmastodon.online%2F%40emmalbriant%2F109295686807615811&data=05%7C01%7Cr.das%40surrey.ac.uk%7C8e8e922617b94cc76c3408dabfdb05a9%7C6b902693107440aa9e21d89446a2ebb5%7C0%7C0%7C638033244663180795%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=cZsOnQkTYEltk9lQ2nT5N54fT31JTfbF9McVzY9uCp4%3D&reserved=0 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://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.patreon.com%2Femmalbriant&data=05%7C01%7Cr.das%40surrey.ac.uk%7C8e8e922617b94cc76c3408dabfdb05a9%7C6b902693107440aa9e21d89446a2ebb5%7C0%7C0%7C638033244663180795%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=UJsyTFjD8XSH1Jp4Y%2FgzYE7%2FZlKGp3sYMF35bOwAods%3D&reserved=0 Website: https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.emma-briant.co.uk%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cr.das%40surrey.ac.uk%7C8e8e922617b94cc76c3408dabfdb05a9%7C6b902693107440aa9e21d89446a2ebb5%7C0%7C0%7C638033244663180795%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=dHE%2Fb%2FteNMdbhhmsPAJaUx2YoANI0VuwwQrXfMiR5Bs%3D&reserved=0

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-- 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. Sign up for my Newsletter <http://emma-briant.co.uk/sign-up-for-important-updates/>! Follow me on Twitter @emmalbriant "I thought yesterday was the first day of the rest of my life but it turns out today is." - Steve Martin

Not that you don't see enough of them already, but ISOC LIVE announces go out at @jolynyc@mastodon.social I'm interested to see if EM messes with Twitter live (ex-Periscope) which I quite like. Joly -- -------------------------------------- Joly MacFie +12185659365 -------------------------------------- -

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@punkcast.com> wrote:

...

Not that you don't see enough of them already, but ISOC LIVE announces go out at @jolynyc@mastodon.social

I'm interested to see if EM messes with Twitter live (ex-Periscope) which I quite like.

Joly -- -------------------------------------- Joly MacFie +12185659365 -------------------------------------- -

_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

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-- https://engagemedia.org

Andrew, I am solely responsible for the interpretation that firing the small academic Twitter team (along with other service and content oriented teams) is a precursor to ending the academic program. There is no reporting I have seen to that effect. It was based on private conversations. I would be pleased to be 100% wrong; the program has been amazing and I love working with academics on the data. However, the program has specific compute costs associated with it. Currently academics with credentials can pull undeleted and unprotected Tweets from the complete history of Twitter for free. That query and the data pull itself are not frictionless. Searching many billions of Tweets and then retrieving the matches when there are 60+ fields of text and metadata and hundreds of millions of rows of data per day, over more than a decade of Twitter online, is costly. I run one rack, with one server, and one disk array, holding about one half billion Tweets, and the electricity bill is a real cost of making our tools free for academics. When Musk is done kicking people off Twitter for not labeling their jokes as parody (so much for free speech leadership) he may look at the cost of the free data access for academics, or anyone else, and choose to curtail or monetize it. Will the Twitter Search API remain free and or operational? Nobody knows. From what I have heard from folks still inside and recently departed, some of the critical functions of the platform are currently under- or unstaffed, not just the academic program. Certain key people who are bearers of institutional knowledge about what keeps Twitter servers running, insanely complicated and in parts aging tech, are now focused on planning a group trip to Disney with the buyout cash, which, not to go too far astray, appears to be one of the largest money laundering operations in history. My point was if you have the academic credentials, have not used them to the full extent, and you have a PhD thesis or scholarly publication dependent on that access, the program is unstaffed, the group in charge of Twitter is fretting about losing $4M US/day, advertisers are bailing out, and we are entering what some political science and history professors call a historically contingent moment with potential for a major ideological realignment or worse. Democracy in the US is under specific and well documented threats and some rightly say social media is an enabling factor for authoritarianism and dystopian politics. If we go into 6 weeks of civil unrest over election denial and another bigger and better violent insurrection is organized on Twitter, does anyone think Elon Musk will want academics or journalists fully empowered to document the role of weaponized Twitter functionalities in that? I am an election worker. People are making violent threats on Twitter about election workers. The folks in charge of regulating that "free speech" are now gone or have diminished resources. Public statements from the Trust & Safety team aside, on Twitter, you can call for the assasination of political leaders all over the world, the killing of vaccine advocates, mob violence against election workers, blatantly false election denial, and some other entirely anarchic, anti-Semitic, and racist stuff, and that was all before Elon fired everyone who was responsible for keeping a lid on such things. Twitter is a loaded weapon. There is no Board of Directors. Literally anything could happen with no check or balance. I remain of the view that Monday will be one of the strangest days in the history of the Internet. Truly, I hope I am wrong about all of it. Stu On Mon, Nov 7, 2022 at 3:17 AM Andrew Lowenthal via Air-L < air-l@listserv.aoir.org> 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@punkcast.com> wrote:

...

Not that you don't see enough of them already, but ISOC LIVE announces go out at @jolynyc@mastodon.social

I'm interested to see if EM messes with Twitter live (ex-Periscope) which I quite like.

Joly -- -------------------------------------- Joly MacFie +12185659365 -------------------------------------- -

_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/

-- https://engagemedia.org

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-- Dr. Stuart W. Shulman Founder and CEO, Texifter Editor Emeritus, *Journal of Information Technology & Politics*

This thread of conversation is fascinating, but could I simply posit that it is being driven a bit too much by your (many of the participants in this discussion) feelings at the moment? Joining a social network is not an either/or decision. I have been signed on to Mastodon for a long time, but not a frequent user. But I have to be a part of many social networks to reach my friends and colleagues - each network has a somewhat different audience. And if you study social networking, or profess to be knowledgeable about Twitter and other networks, it is really nuts not to use a number of networks - unless you are not a social scientist of the internet and social media. Just somewhat baffled by the intensity of feelings being expressed. IMHO as an old user. William H. Dutton 55 Victoria Road Oxford OX2 7QF United Kingdom william.dutton@gmail.com Twitter @BiIIDutton (II=two capital ii’s) Phone: +44 (0)1865 423836 Mobile: +44 (0)7757 741670 Blog: https://billdutton.me

On 7 Nov 2022, at 12:58, Michael Ruigrok via Air-L <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

Be warned, these are the thoughts of a long-time Mastodon user,

Regarding Mastodon as an alternative, I think it would be a unique opportunity if the academic community were to become involved in the direction of the platform. As an open and community-driven technology, Mastodon can improve directly from the input of its community. Points like Emma's can have actual weight in shaping the possibilities of the platform, especially considering that the platform's end goals correspond closely with supporting vibrant, inclusive communities. I think it's critical that these possible issues and improvements are discussed, both within this community, and between us and the Mastodon community at large. Open-source projects like Mastodon do have limited resources, so individual wishes can be difficult to meet, and progress can be slow, but wider discussion and support does have impact.

This openness applies equally to shaping the platform to support opportunities for research. Given that the network of Mastodon is predominantly run by people dedicating their personal time and money to the mission of an ethical, open social technology, it's likely that they are more than happy to collaborate closely with our goals. While the decentralisation of Mastodon certainly presents a challenge for data collection, sharing the load of infrastructure may provide an environment where open data becomes a more sustainable, albeit smaller scale affair.

On a more idiosyncratic, but equally idealistic note, I'm fascinated at the possibility of leveraging the platform for more direct HCI research. Since Mastodon is part of a decentralised ecosystem, it would be possible to create a Mastodon server integrated with the existing social network, change one or a set of features, and get concrete metrics to how specific changes influence behaviour in a real-world, yet controlled environment. It's something I'd be interested in testing the feasibility of.

I do have some more specific thoughts on democratic discoverability on Mastodon, but I think I'll save them for that Mastodon thread. I'd also be keen to add anything relevant from these discussions on the Github feature request thread: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/14918.

Thank you for the compelling perspectives!

Michael

On Mon, Nov 7, 2022 at 8:17 PM Shulman, Stu via Air-L < air-l@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

...

Andrew,

I am solely responsible for the interpretation that firing the small academic Twitter team (along with other service and content oriented teams) is a precursor to ending the academic program. There is no reporting I have seen to that effect. It was based on private conversations. I would be pleased to be 100% wrong; the program has been amazing and I love working with academics on the data. However, the program has specific compute costs associated with it. Currently academics with credentials can pull undeleted and unprotected Tweets from the complete history of Twitter for free. That query and the data pull itself are not frictionless. Searching many billions of Tweets and then retrieving the matches when there are 60+ fields of text and metadata and hundreds of millions of rows of data per day, over more than a decade of Twitter online, is costly. I run one rack, with one server, and one disk array, holding about one half billion Tweets, and the electricity bill is a real cost of making our tools free for academics. When Musk is done kicking people off Twitter for not labeling their jokes as parody (so much for free speech leadership) he may look at the cost of the free data access for academics, or anyone else, and choose to curtail or monetize it. Will the Twitter Search API remain free and or operational? Nobody knows. From what I have heard from folks still inside and recently departed, some of the critical functions of the platform are currently under- or unstaffed, not just the academic program. Certain key people who are bearers of institutional knowledge about what keeps Twitter servers running, insanely complicated and in parts aging tech, are now focused on planning a group trip to Disney with the buyout cash, which, not to go too far astray, appears to be one of the largest money laundering operations in history. My point was if you have the academic credentials, have not used them to the full extent, and you have a PhD thesis or scholarly publication dependent on that access, the program is unstaffed, the group in charge of Twitter is fretting about losing $4M US/day, advertisers are bailing out, and we are entering what some political science and history professors call a historically contingent moment with potential for a major ideological realignment or worse. Democracy in the US is under specific and well documented threats and some rightly say social media is an enabling factor for authoritarianism and dystopian politics. If we go into 6 weeks of civil unrest over election denial and another bigger and better violent insurrection is organized on Twitter, does anyone think Elon Musk will want academics or journalists fully empowered to document the role of weaponized Twitter functionalities in that? I am an election worker. People are making violent threats on Twitter about election workers. The folks in charge of regulating that "free speech" are now gone or have diminished resources. Public statements from the Trust & Safety team aside, on Twitter, you can call for the assasination of political leaders all over the world, the killing of vaccine advocates, mob violence against election workers, blatantly false election denial, and some other entirely anarchic, anti-Semitic, and racist stuff, and that was all before Elon fired everyone who was responsible for keeping a lid on such things. Twitter is a loaded weapon. There is no Board of Directors. Literally anything could happen with no check or balance. I remain of the view that Monday will be one of the strangest days in the history of the Internet. Truly, I hope I am wrong about all of it.

Stu

_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

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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@punkcast.com> wrote:

...

Not that you don't see enough of them already, but ISOC LIVE announces go out at @jolynyc@mastodon.social

I'm interested to see if EM messes with Twitter live (ex-Periscope) which I quite like.

Joly -- -------------------------------------- Joly MacFie +12185659365 -------------------------------------- -

_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/

-- https://engagemedia.org

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On 11/7/2022 6:51 AM, Richard Forno via Air-L wrote:

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.)

Sadly this is not uncommon during "regime changes" at Internet tech companies. The new leadership fires far more people than they should've, and then often has to hire some or even many back at a significant salary increase. On top of that, some of those with good employment prospects may decide to seek better opportunities. So their possibly irreplaceable tech and business practices knowledge is lost forever. Fred --- On 11/7/2022 6:51 AM, Richard Forno via Air-L 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@punkcast.com> wrote:

...

Not that you don't see enough of them already, but ISOC LIVE announces go out at @jolynyc@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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-- https://engagemedia.org

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---

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Good Mastodon primer https://clivethompson.medium.com/come-join-me-on-mastodon-folks-bbb073ff05d2 -- -------------------------------------- Joly MacFie +12185659365 -------------------------------------- -

Hi all, Following the Twitter|Mastodon threads with critical interest. I appreciate the invitation from Michael Ruigrok to members of this group to bring your sophisticated knowledge and experience to the improvement of federated, communal social networks. I'm always interested in access, thinking about outlier groups such as the Deaf, for whom text is frequently not a sufficient accommodation (despite the convenience of this belief for h/Hearing people). *That said, Deaf academics on Twitter are formidable! I'm glad of the resources from Meryl, Joly and Fred Fuchs too, as I'm at the edge of my learning curve learning how to navigate Mastodon. Wanted to share this political, antiracist perspective from Tim Wise, who argues that it's mainly white liberals who are concerned with 'fleeing' the new Twitter <https://timjwise.medium.com/fleeing-twitter-the-twexodus-is-about-white-liberal-fragility-3631cb2ac317>, suggesting this is evidence of the pervasiveness of white fragility -- even among progressives. best regards, steph On Tue, Nov 8, 2022 at 1:30 AM Fred Fuchs via Air-L <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

Here's a TechRadar article on Mastodon.

https://www.techradar.com/news/mastodon-is-a-great-twitter-alternative-but-i...

Fred

--

Fred Fuchs - Founder, CEO, & Producer FireSabre Consulting LLC

---

On 11/7/2022 8:26 AM, Fred Fuchs wrote:

...

On 11/7/2022 6:51 AM, Richard Forno via Air-L wrote:

...

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.)

Sadly this is not uncommon during "regime changes" at Internet tech companies. The new leadership fires far more people than they should've, and then often has to hire some or even many back at a significant salary increase.

On top of that, some of those with good employment prospects may decide to seek better opportunities. So their possibly irreplaceable tech and business practices knowledge is lost forever.

Fred

---

On 11/7/2022 6:51 AM, Richard Forno via Air-L 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

_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/

I’ll be honest, I’m a little worried about the privacy and security issue of using these services. I did see Wolfie Christl (who I trust) share two such sites and say he trusts the people behind them ( https://mastodon.social/@wchr/109299350293033545), but he also doesn’t seem to have used them himself as his Mastodon follower count doesn’t seem high like his Twitter. May I ask the community here whether anyone has concerns? Many thanks, Emma On Wed, 9 Nov 2022 at 16:07, Sarah Ann Oates via Air-L < air-l@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

This app to help migrate from Twitter to Mastodon was recommended by a colleague today; I have yet to try it but looks promising:

https://pruvisto.org/debirdify/

Sarah

Sarah Oates Pronoun: she/her

Professor and Senior Scholar Philip Merrill College of Journalism Distinguished Scholar-Teacher University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 Email: soates@umd.edu Phone: 301 455 2332 www.media-politics.com Twitter: @media_politics

*Support the UMD Student Crisis Fund <https://giving.umd.edu/giving/showPage.php?name=crisis-funding> today. *

On Tue, Nov 8, 2022 at 10:22 AM Steph Kent via Air-L < air-l@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

...

Hi all,

Following the Twitter|Mastodon threads with critical interest. I appreciate the invitation from Michael Ruigrok to members of this group to bring your sophisticated knowledge and experience to the improvement of federated, communal social networks. I'm always interested in access, thinking about outlier groups such as the Deaf, for whom text is frequently not a sufficient accommodation (despite the convenience of this belief for h/Hearing people). *That said, Deaf academics on Twitter are formidable!

I'm glad of the resources from Meryl, Joly and Fred Fuchs too, as I'm at the edge of my learning curve learning how to navigate Mastodon.

Wanted to share this political, antiracist perspective from Tim Wise, who argues that it's mainly white liberals who are concerned with 'fleeing' the new Twitter <

https://timjwise.medium.com/fleeing-twitter-the-twexodus-is-about-white-libe...

...

...

, suggesting this is evidence of the pervasiveness of white fragility -- even among progressives.

best regards, steph

On Tue, Nov 8, 2022 at 1:30 AM Fred Fuchs via Air-L < air-l@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

...

Here's a TechRadar article on Mastodon.

https://www.techradar.com/news/mastodon-is-a-great-twitter-alternative-but-i...

...

...

Fred

--

Fred Fuchs - Founder, CEO, & Producer FireSabre Consulting LLC

---

On 11/7/2022 8:26 AM, Fred Fuchs wrote:

...

On 11/7/2022 6:51 AM, Richard Forno via Air-L wrote:

...

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.)

Sadly this is not uncommon during "regime changes" at Internet tech companies. The new leadership fires far more people than they should've, and then often has to hire some or even many back at a significant salary increase.

On top of that, some of those with good employment prospects may decide to seek better opportunities. So their possibly irreplaceable tech and business practices knowledge is lost forever.

Fred

---

On 11/7/2022 6:51 AM, Richard Forno via Air-L 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

_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/

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-- 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. Sign up for my Newsletter <http://emma-briant.co.uk/sign-up-for-important-updates/>! Follow me on Twitter @emmalbriant "I thought yesterday was the first day of the rest of my life but it turns out today is." - Steve Martin

Hi, Emma -- One of the major critiques of the development of ActivityPub (the protocol underlying Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, etc) is that the developers did not pay enough attention to security and privacy questions. Those concerns were bracketed off. For example, in terms of connections between servers, the developers assumed that other projects, like SSL, would solve any security issues. Encryption in general was bracketed off as out of scope for the ActivityPub project. (To be fair, they had a lot on their plates). So, as a result, there are some definite privacy issues. DMs between two members are not end-to-end encrypted. An instance admin has a great deal of insight into the network, from member profiles to who is talking to whom. There are people working on solutions to these problems. Indeed, one of the key developers, Christine Lemmer-Webber, recognized the problem of encrypting DMs back in 2017: https://github.com/w3c/activitypub/issues/225 and has proposed some solutions in the time since. But currently, DMs are not encrypted. The key issue, as always, is trust. Admins have to foster trust among their members by being good actors. But we also know from hard experience that admins can break trust. So, Emma, your questions are BIG ones and need to be pressed. Note that much of what I am saying is true of the corporate model, however. Twitter doesn't encrypt DMs. Yes, FB might have end-to-end encryption -- but of course, you have to trust that they haven't been compelled by a powerful state to have a backdoor. (And this is a company that holds a patent on an automated system to turn user data over to law enforcement). - Rob On 11/9/22 21:13, Dr. Emma Briant via Air-L wrote:

I’ll be honest, I’m a little worried about the privacy and security issue of using these services. I did see Wolfie Christl (who I trust) share two such sites and say he trusts the people behind them ( https://mastodon.social/@wchr/109299350293033545), but he also doesn’t seem to have used them himself as his Mastodon follower count doesn’t seem high like his Twitter. May I ask the community here whether anyone has concerns? Many thanks, Emma

On Wed, 9 Nov 2022 at 16:07, Sarah Ann Oates via Air-L < air-l@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

...

This app to help migrate from Twitter to Mastodon was recommended by a colleague today; I have yet to try it but looks promising:

https://pruvisto.org/debirdify/

Sarah

Sarah Oates Pronoun: she/her

Professor and Senior Scholar Philip Merrill College of Journalism Distinguished Scholar-Teacher University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 Email: soates@umd.edu Phone: 301 455 2332 www.media-politics.com Twitter: @media_politics

*Support the UMD Student Crisis Fund <https://giving.umd.edu/giving/showPage.php?name=crisis-funding> today. *

On Tue, Nov 8, 2022 at 10:22 AM Steph Kent via Air-L < air-l@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

...

Hi all,

Following the Twitter|Mastodon threads with critical interest. I appreciate the invitation from Michael Ruigrok to members of this group to bring your sophisticated knowledge and experience to the improvement of federated, communal social networks. I'm always interested in access, thinking about outlier groups such as the Deaf, for whom text is frequently not a sufficient accommodation (despite the convenience of this belief for h/Hearing people). *That said, Deaf academics on Twitter are formidable!

I'm glad of the resources from Meryl, Joly and Fred Fuchs too, as I'm at the edge of my learning curve learning how to navigate Mastodon.

Wanted to share this political, antiracist perspective from Tim Wise, who argues that it's mainly white liberals who are concerned with 'fleeing' the new Twitter <

https://timjwise.medium.com/fleeing-twitter-the-twexodus-is-about-white-libe...

...

...

, suggesting this is evidence of the pervasiveness of white fragility -- even among progressives.

best regards, steph

On Tue, Nov 8, 2022 at 1:30 AM Fred Fuchs via Air-L < air-l@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

...

Here's a TechRadar article on Mastodon.

https://www.techradar.com/news/mastodon-is-a-great-twitter-alternative-but-i...

...

Fred

--

Fred Fuchs - Founder, CEO, & Producer FireSabre Consulting LLC

---

On 11/7/2022 8:26 AM, Fred Fuchs wrote:

...

On 11/7/2022 6:51 AM, Richard Forno via Air-L wrote:

...

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.) Sadly this is not uncommon during "regime changes" at Internet tech companies. The new leadership fires far more people than they should've, and then often has to hire some or even many back at a significant salary increase.

On top of that, some of those with good employment prospects may decide to seek better opportunities. So their possibly irreplaceable tech and business practices knowledge is lost forever.

Fred

---

On 11/7/2022 6:51 AM, Richard Forno via Air-L 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

---

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Thank you so much Robert! It's good to have this clarity over the role the admins play, I really had no idea how this worked. I hope they are able to advance the encryption for DMs at some point. My main concern was these 'migration from Twitter' websites. Where I can certainly see their reasons for needing us to log in with our Twitter accounts it seems quite potentially possible that having this access, could compromise DMs. Having had experience of being impacted by a recent hostile cyber attack I think I will personally choose not to put my Twitter credentials into a website whose developers I don't know a great deal about. Call me paranoid but I just haven't seen enough that's reassuring about this. Emma On Thu, Nov 10, 2022 at 5:57 AM Robert W Gehl via Air-L < air-l@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

Hi, Emma --

One of the major critiques of the development of ActivityPub (the protocol underlying Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, etc) is that the developers did not pay enough attention to security and privacy questions. Those concerns were bracketed off. For example, in terms of connections between servers, the developers assumed that other projects, like SSL, would solve any security issues. Encryption in general was bracketed off as out of scope for the ActivityPub project. (To be fair, they had a lot on their plates).

So, as a result, there are some definite privacy issues. DMs between two members are not end-to-end encrypted. An instance admin has a great deal of insight into the network, from member profiles to who is talking to whom.

There are people working on solutions to these problems. Indeed, one of the key developers, Christine Lemmer-Webber, recognized the problem of encrypting DMs back in 2017: https://github.com/w3c/activitypub/issues/225 and has proposed some solutions in the time since.

But currently, DMs are not encrypted.

The key issue, as always, is trust. Admins have to foster trust among their members by being good actors. But we also know from hard experience that admins can break trust. So, Emma, your questions are BIG ones and need to be pressed.

Note that much of what I am saying is true of the corporate model, however. Twitter doesn't encrypt DMs. Yes, FB might have end-to-end encryption -- but of course, you have to trust that they haven't been compelled by a powerful state to have a backdoor. (And this is a company that holds a patent on an automated system to turn user data over to law enforcement).

- Rob

On 11/9/22 21:13, Dr. Emma Briant via Air-L wrote:

...

I’ll be honest, I’m a little worried about the privacy and security issue of using these services. I did see Wolfie Christl (who I trust) share two such sites and say he trusts the people behind them ( https://mastodon.social/@wchr/109299350293033545), but he also doesn’t seem to have used them himself as his Mastodon follower count doesn’t seem high like his Twitter. May I ask the community here whether anyone has concerns? Many thanks, Emma

On Wed, 9 Nov 2022 at 16:07, Sarah Ann Oates via Air-L < air-l@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

...

This app to help migrate from Twitter to Mastodon was recommended by a colleague today; I have yet to try it but looks promising:

https://pruvisto.org/debirdify/

Sarah

Sarah Oates Pronoun: she/her

Professor and Senior Scholar Philip Merrill College of Journalism Distinguished Scholar-Teacher University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 Email: soates@umd.edu Phone: 301 455 2332 www.media-politics.com Twitter: @media_politics

*Support the UMD Student Crisis Fund <https://giving.umd.edu/giving/showPage.php?name=crisis-funding> today. *

On Tue, Nov 8, 2022 at 10:22 AM Steph Kent via Air-L < air-l@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

...

Hi all,

Following the Twitter|Mastodon threads with critical interest. I appreciate the invitation from Michael Ruigrok to members of this group to bring your sophisticated knowledge and experience to the improvement of federated, communal social networks. I'm always interested in access, thinking about outlier groups such as the Deaf, for whom text is frequently not a sufficient accommodation (despite the convenience of this belief for h/Hearing people). *That said, Deaf academics on Twitter are formidable!

I'm glad of the resources from Meryl, Joly and Fred Fuchs too, as I'm at the edge of my learning curve learning how to navigate Mastodon.

Wanted to share this political, antiracist perspective from Tim Wise, who argues that it's mainly white liberals who are concerned with 'fleeing' the new Twitter <

https://timjwise.medium.com/fleeing-twitter-the-twexodus-is-about-white-libe...

...

...

...

, suggesting this is evidence of the pervasiveness of white fragility -- even among progressives.

best regards, steph

On Tue, Nov 8, 2022 at 1:30 AM Fred Fuchs via Air-L < air-l@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

...

Here's a TechRadar article on Mastodon.

https://www.techradar.com/news/mastodon-is-a-great-twitter-alternative-but-i...

...

...

...

Fred

--

Fred Fuchs - Founder, CEO, & Producer FireSabre Consulting LLC

---

On 11/7/2022 8:26 AM, Fred Fuchs wrote:

...

On 11/7/2022 6:51 AM, Richard Forno via Air-L wrote: > 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.) Sadly this is not uncommon during "regime changes" at Internet tech companies. The new leadership fires far more people than they should've, and then often has to hire some or even many back at a significant salary increase.

On top of that, some of those with good employment prospects may decide to seek better opportunities. So their possibly irreplaceable tech and business practices knowledge is lost forever.

Fred

---

On 11/7/2022 6:51 AM, Richard Forno via Air-L 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 > >

---

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---

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-- 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. Sign up for my Newsletter <http://emma-briant.co.uk/sign-up-for-important-updates/>! Follow me on Twitter @emmalbriant "I thought yesterday was the first day of the rest of my life but it turns out today is." - Steve Martin

Thanks for a great thread, Robert's optimism is encouraging, while we also need to watch out for how federated social media networks pan out in different contexts. Arguing against EU's enthusiasm for small platforms, I had said: Although the EU proposal to require very large platforms (Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) to open up to competitors with mandatory interoperability is relevant in the pursuit of anticompetition policy objectives, this is not an obvious solution to the problem of extreme speech. This proposal assumes that regulating large platforms and fostering smaller players would create a scenario where “users could freely choose which social media community they would like to be part of—for example depending on their content moderation preferences and privacy needs—while still being able to connect with and talk to all of their social friends and contacts” (EDRi 2020, 4). This approach, thick with liberal baggage, underestimates the possibility that this very “marketplace for ideas” could provide an easy way for hate mongers—as illustrated by alt-right actors—to hop between platforms and innovate on content. Even more, as emerging scenarios in India suggest, politically vested interest groups are likely to invest and drive the market of multiple smaller players toward partisan and divisive messaging. https://mediawell.ssrc.org/expert-reflections/small-platforms-and-the-gray-z... I have just joined a Mastodon instance; comm and media studies scholars might also find this opt-in list useful to find fellow scholars: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vFWP_eBXrjeDqDkmT6PEbxnsZ_QFC4OgEgUHTrJW... Best Sahana *** Sahana Udupa | Professor of Media Anthropology | University of Munich New book: https://nyupress.org/9781479819157/digital-unsettling/ On Thu, Nov 10, 2022 at 6:45 PM Michael Klontzas via Air-L < air-l@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

Emma,

This may not be the case with other tools, but Debirtify only gets read access to information that is already publicly available plus any private lists. This is confirmed by Twitter on the login/authorisation page. Debirtify can't read DMs either. 'Why do you need me to connect to my Twitter account?' on their website explains why they need us to log in instead of doing what Fritter for Android [1] does.

[1] Fritter can figure out who you follow and show you your tweets stream without you having to log in to Twitter or anything else.

Best, Michael

On 10/11/2022 14:41, Dr. Emma Briant via Air-L wrote:

...

Thank you so much Robert! It's good to have this clarity over the role the admins play, I really had no idea how this worked. I hope they are able to advance the encryption for DMs at some point. My main concern was these 'migration from Twitter' websites. Where I can certainly see their reasons for needing us to log in with our Twitter accounts it seems quite potentially possible that having this access, could compromise DMs. Having had experience of being impacted by a recent hostile cyber attack I think I will personally choose not to put my Twitter credentials into a website whose developers I don't know a great deal about. Call me paranoid but I just haven't seen enough that's reassuring about this. Emma

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