I moved servers on Mastodon and lost 8,000 followers over there. Some smart people are trying to figure out where they are.
If you followed me on Mastodon, you may need to follow me again here: @Teri_Kanefield@law-and-politics.online.
I assumed . . .
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. . . that the lost followers were stuck in Mastodon Purgatory, but I was informed that I was using outdated human mythology and actually my lost followers are in the La Brea Tar Pits.
If you followed me more than 2 days ago on Mastodon, you may need to do this ⤵️
What happened is I tried to move 17,000 followers to my own server and there is a major slowdown because all Mastodon servers are overloaded with a huge influx from Twitter.
Since writing this post over the weekend, I've developed more doubts about Post .news as an alternative to Twitter: terikanefield.com/curing-the-ill…
I understand that Post. news is in the beta stages and a competent team is working out details. My issues have to do with the premise.
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These two articles are from the Nieman Lab (Harvard).
This one explains the problem: niemanlab.org/2022/11/post-t…
The premise is that a site can monetize through micropayments, but major publishers have to join or it will not work, and they may not.
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But, as Cass Sunstein argued in 2017, the Internet and social media are threatening democracy by driving political fragmentation, polarization, and even extremism.
Musk's takeover of Twitter perhaps gives us a chance to create something better. . .
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Among other things, I analyze the two emerging alternatives receiving the most attention right now: Mastodon and Post. news.
To those saying, "There is no good Twitter alternative," I add the word "yet."
Yes, social media does a lot of good. I mention those at the beginning.
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In 2017, Cass Sunstein argued that the Internet and social media are threatening democracy by driving political fragmentation, polarization, and even extremism.
Part I of my blog post lays out how social media as it currently operates encourages demagoguery.
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We have to understand the problem before we can think about solutions.
In Part I, I talked about trust-building, algorithms, and the problem with the current structure of social media platforms, which does a lot of good, but also allows for democracy-smashing behavior.
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