DecaturNature @DecaturNature@social.cleverlibre.org

Update on ua-fediland.de :

One of their moderators got back to my email. They're in Ukraine and can't moderate during the blackouts (understandably!), and the bots/spammers take advantage of the power outages (they're Russian) to sign up when they know they'll have maximum time to stay on the instance before getting moderated.

I've suggested they might want to close sign ups before the outages to try to prevent it.

We're moving them from suspended to silenced and will keep an eye.

It has been repeated many times, but the idea that cis het men would go to any bother whatsoever pretending to be trans women in order to sexually assault someone when they do so all the time already and are rarely and barely punished for it is patently absurd, and yet we are constantly forced to address this nonexistent, made-up problem by people who just want trans people to disappear and die.

The Paradox of Tolerance disappears if you look at tolerance, not as a moral standard, but as a social contract.

If someone does not abide by the terms of the contract, then they are not covered by it.

In other words: The intolerant are not following the rules of the social contract of mutual tolerance.

Since they have broken the terms of the contract, they are no longer covered by the contract, and their intolerance should NOT be tolerated.

[inspired by “Tolerance is not a moral precept”]

#India government moves to block online a BBC documentary critical of Prime Minister Modi. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/bbc-documentary-pm-modi-blocked-twitter-youtube-2324600-2023-01-21

The Smithsonian has made over 4 MILLION images open source! You can create, copy, distribute, etc. This is amazing!

https://www.si.edu/openaccess

Zumbi, the Afro-brazilian Leader Who Was Beheaded by the Portuguese for Resisting Slavery

https://talkafricana.com/zumbi-the-afro-brazilian-leader-who-was-beheaded-by-the-portuguese-for-resisting-slavery/

#africa
#Brazilpolitcs
#BlackMastodon

News publishers are bemoaning the drop in Twitter traffic referrals under Musk. But they have a plan: They'll put more of their stuff on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Because they're monumentally oblivious to the lesson they've (again) failed to learn. Namely: Do not trust or rely on centralized systems you don't control.

https://digiday.com/media/publishers-lament-the-removal-of-twitter-moments-as-referral-traffic-dips/

i was laid-off twice early in my career in very large reorgs / cost-cutting.

the thing that wld have been helpful for me to hear then was 'this is not abt you. you were a number on someone's spreadsheet. they wanted that number to go down by 1000 or 2000 or 10,000'.

so, to anyone who needs to hear that today:

it's not abt you. you did nothing wrong.

New from me, at Law Dork, on today's #SCOTUS Dobbs leak investigation news …

"If the justices were not investigated, Thursday's statement and report mean little — other than drawing more attention to the justices and their interests surrounding the leak."

https://www.lawdork.com/p/did-the-supreme-courts-dobbs-leak

Because it was running from the cops.

FEM (Frequently expressed (mis)conceptions)

#1: “So you are on #Mastodon? “ (Nope, noooo, I am not, I am on #Fediverse, please do not confuse Mastodon with #Fediverse)

#2 “Mastodon is so confusing because there …” (As a matter of fact, Twitter and Facebook are far more confusing to use. If all you want to do are open an account, access the web page, post, repost, follow people,and like, what exactly is confusing in Mastodon that is not confusing in twitter?)

#3 “Meh! After all these they still haven’t figured out that edit button”

(Really? Which server you are on? Have you tried qoto.org? If editing your post is super important, try #Pleroma, #Rebased, #Misskey … )

#4 “But with only 500 characters you can only do so much …”

(Well, if you want to write the Ben Hur or War and Peace in your posts, there are servers that allow you 65,000+ characters to play with and there are several instances where you get 1000+ characters to play with… )

#5 “Hmmmm interesting, there are no groups on this thing, where are the groups?”

(Did you check out a.gup.pe?)

#6 “But but where are the people? It’s so empty”

(Have you realised you are starting out new in a new neighbourhood? Can you not find people and topics to start with. We are not even into getting how you can follow your Tweeps who are here, or, (don’t recommend but), if you are desperate, cross post from the birdsite to here, will sure find some friends )

#6 “Hundreds of servers, no central control! What happens if my admin closes shop? Are we not stranded? What happens to my data?”

(If scale is your worry, rest assured you are not stuck with your server, you have options here. Set up accounts everywhere post, like, share, reshare to your heart’s content. Better yet, set up your own server to traverse the #Fediverse. This thing is alive, thriving and growing. Welcome to the magical world of #Fediveese, a real,safe fun place!)

#Fediverse

'How you could build a search that the fediverse would welcome' by @anildash is such a good and thoughtful read. Really impressed to see so much good writing lately about the #fediverse and how to move this weird project of ours forward! :undefined::undefined: :undefined:
https://anildash.com/2023/01/16/a-fediverse-search/

It's a major disconnect that social media is filled with egg price memes, but few mentions of the worst global avian flu epidemic in history. #birdflu #eggs #socialmedia

Please don’t confuse what is legal with what is right. There is some overlap, of course, but not as much as one might think. Laws are generally written by the rich and powerful to protect their interests, often at the expense of the poor and weak. Many atrocities are lawful, and many acts of mercy are unlawful. I say this as an attorney.

I've been speaking and writing lately about how tech companies try to shift the discussion on misinformation polarization, etc., away from the systems and structures that are inherently toxic and toward questions of individual behavior.

This way they can blame their own users for the any pathology and steer clear of calls for systemic change.

Today Elon Musk has come through with a perfect illustration for my future talks.

#socialmedia #twitter #ElonMusk

If you play a role in research data stewardship (even if your job title is closer to “graduate student”), which of these challenges, if any, is present and most painful for you?

I was one of the people who truly loved the bird app, even though it was a gauntlet of harassment and mortification during the early years of Ms Marvel. It connected people who might never have found each other otherwise. I met people there who went on to be close friends. But the accelerated slide into what @pluralistic calls enshittification in recent weeks has been really heartbreaking. A decade and a half of work built on sand. https://furbo.org/2023/01/15/the-shit-show/

Titmouse attack!