The big story occupying space in my mind (and on this blog) is the #TwitterMigration. As Twitter grows troubled and troubling, “Fediverse” technologies in general and Mastodon in particular are successfully attracting many users and providing a pleasant experience. Everyone is wondering out loud whether Mastodon can take the strain and whether it can provide cool new features. What we haven’t been discussing are two ethical questions: First, is it OK to bail out of Twitter? And if bailing out, is Mastodon a acceptable place to land? Bye, Twitter (OK?) · I confess that this discussion caught me by surprise but I’m glad it did, it’s eye-opening. The voices are those of Black and disabled people (mostly the former) arguing that Twitter has fueled an important flowering of their culture (the hashtag is #BlackTwitter) and become important as a refuge, a meeting place, and a source of power. I’m as white as can be, so probably not your best source on the subject, but I felt educated by Shamira Ibrahim’s Can Black Twitter Ever Really Die? ¶
I’m a proponent of free markets, but I also think that social media should not be provided by them. Destroying Twitter and Reddit alone won’t be enough, since Facebook or new companies etc. will replace the void left by them. Even Mastodon is a bit of a risk, since there’s essentially nothing that protects from a single large entity pooling up resources, using marketing tactics etc., taking a majority of the network and then doing the good old embrace and extinguish move.
This needs global legislature to be fixed, and unfortunately the world does not seem to be moving towards a direction where that sort of thing could be achieved. EU is the best actor in this space currently, and that’s not a high hurdle. And EU is probably not taking over the world.
@vekku @SrEstegosaurio A free market exists only as a concept in the mind - in the real world they are shackled and regulated to prevent the worst excesses of greed and inhumanity. “Free Markets” have NO business providing aged care, child care or any other sort of care or basic utilities. They also should not be providing news and information where that information is manipulated by an algorithm more interested in profit than the truth. #invisiblehand #freemarket #adamsmith