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? ¶
To be honest I didnt read it to the end after encountering such a ridiculous argument being seriously considered.
I think it’s important to take arguments like these seriously, especially when they are coming from minority groups whose needs I may not be familiar with. Far too often, I see concepts like privilege, structural racism, and racist infrastructure being dismissed as ridiculous by the conservatives outright when they’re well grounded in reality.