Thread by @ajreid

Outrageous setting for this powerhouse panel here at #ijf23 with @CharlieBeckett @emilybell @mathewi and @mitrakalita. What now for journalism as the platforms move on?

Twitter is now "a train wreck but where every car is a dumpster and they're all on fire. And it's crashing" is a helluva way to kick things off from @mathewi #ijf23

The more platforms we have, the better says @CharlieBeckett. And rethinking our relationships with them is only a good thing. #ijf23

Twitter does something which no other platform does, says @emilybell, which is tell the world what is happening right now. Irrespective of status, background and, even, credentials #ijf23

But Elon coming in is like a new developer coming to town, tearing down the buildings and saying "I don't care if that's where you met your friends, it's mine now" #ijf23

In a packed room, @mathewi asks who is paying for Twitter. There is one. Plus @mitrakalita, on stage. "If I refuse to pay for products made by white men whose politics I disagree with, I probably wouldn't eat or have travelled here today" she says #ijf23

There's a danger for journalists of thinking Twitter is the real world, says @CharlieBeckett, and we should not fall into the facade of disproportionality that it can create #ijf23

But in some non-Western countries, where there are real government pressures on media outlets, Twitter can be vital for independent journalists in doing their job and telling their truth says @emilybell #ijf23

So what about Facebook? News made up something like 3% of traffic, says @CharlieBeckett, and they stopped funding it. The pretence of caring about news and journalism is gone #ijf23

There are people about both companies who care about news, but at the top it is about stopping regulation, says @emilybell, regulation which is intended to pass money from one part of the information ecosystem to another #ijf23

Facebook, sure, is a lobbying organisation now, says @mitrakalita, but it was set up to rank women. Thinking that platform cares about a news ecosystem was always a non starter #ijf23

What about other platforms? Mastodon is great but it's predominantly white nerds, says @emilybell, and although it's improving it doesn't do what Twitter does in being a centralised platform where everyone is together #ijf23

Q from the floor: Should platforms be publicly owned? That opens the door to questions around authoritarianism and sustainability, says @CharlieBeckett. It's never going to happen in America, days @emilybell #ij23

"Journalism in the face of American capitalism is like a marshmallow in the face of a dragon" says @emilybell #ijf23

We looked at platforms as referral traffic rather than what we were actually doing on there, says @mitrakalita, which is a fundamental failure.

Very good point: she worries about newsrooms serving platforms rather than serving the people on them #ijf23