Seems like a good time to re #introduce myself and write my first #mastodon thread. Hi! I wrote a book about #activism on #Twitter https://www.amazon.com/HashtagActivism-Networks-Gender-Justice-Press/dp/0262043378 But, I've never been a #tech optimist. We've always known that technology can be used for good, mundane, and evil. What I am an optimist about is the ability of ordinary people to organize for change and insist on being heard, that's the central argument of #HashtagActivism.
But, we should be very concerned by the efforts of illiberal, fascistic, far-right, and wealthy actors to control our information systems and the larger public sphere. This is what we've seen with the new owner of #Twitter. It's why the #twittermigration is happening. The recent banning of tech #journalists feels like only a very recent iteration of these efforts.
For many years, long before EM was a variable, Black women and other marginalized folks on #Twitter, along with scholars, warned of the potentials for the site to organize and mainstream hate speech, fascistic ideologies, and other illiberal forms of communication & thinking. The current moment is what happens when the owner of a platform decides that's the side he's on. It's hard for ordinary folks, folks on the margins, and journalists to intervene and offer counters under these conditions.
However, this does not mean that #Twitter is uniquely bad or corrupt, it is actually similar to many other platforms and technologies in the potential for both harm and good. Think about how the printing press was used to legitimize and justify colonialism and #slavery. Yet, anticolonial movements and #abolitionists used this same technology to promulgate and shape movements for freedom.
Every #technology is unique, of course, in the ways it can be used. Private, capitalist ownership is bad. Not just in social media, but in #journalism. Bad for democracy and bad for an inclusive and expansive #publicsphere. That one person is driving this point home so intensely may help us have more conversations about this and spur listening to those with #solutions. It may not.
The folks at the margins are the canaries in the coal mine with #tech and #media. They should have been listened to a long time ago. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2018/12/crowdsourced-twitter-study-reveals-shocking-scale-of-online-abuse-against-women/ That said, they also have solutions that need to be heard. The recent banning of #journalists comes after academics who study far-right radicalization were banned and harassed from the site, which comes long, long, long after ordinary femme folks and #peopleofcolor told us about things like brigading and how to stop it.
Anyhow, I have been hesitant to use this site b/c I haven't seen the #joy and #activism that characterizes #BlackTwitter here. I know #blackmastodon and #blackfedi are representing and growing. I hope folks running things in various servers will hear the critiques about how critical conversations about #race and other axes of #socialinequality are also being silenced and marginalized here.
Well, the people running servers would be at #MastodonServer I would hope.
Moderators who are a LOT more active here (on good instances) may well follow #Moderation and this feels like a white people caused problem that #AntiFascist and #AntiRacist people who are against #whiteSupremacist thinking would get on with challenging and addressing. It isn't right for Black people to have to do all the work for a problem not of their making.