ABrockwell @aebrockwell@social.cleverlibre.org

My understanding is that mastodon itself supports so-called "quote tweets," but they aren't implemented on most servers. They're implemented on the server I use, though, so this should appear to be quoted.

#nerdery #mastodon #QuoteBoost

Michael Wagner: The backlash against pro-democracy research and journalism is coming. “Democracy cannot thrive or survive without a media ecosystem willing to report verifiable truths about the core tenets of democracy — even if those truths currently favor one major political party over another.“ https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/12/the-backlash-against-pro-democracy-reporting-is-coming/

The Inigo Montoya method of greeting people.
Step 1: Polite greeting.
Step 2: Your name.
Step 3: Relevant personal link.
Step 4: Manage Expectations.

Washington Post will be creating their own instance. They will add #mastodon accounts to journalist profiles.

Institutional #journalism embracing the #fediverse is important.

#commodon #journodon @communicationscholars

I always hated the phrase "Show your thinking." #mathJokes

All jokes aside, remember what Christmas is really about, people.

Rich people being terrorized by spectres until they agree to pay their employees a living wage.

This is one of the hardest & most important warnings for us all.

Perpetrators were people who accepted and followed an ideology that made them believe that they are better than others and that rationalized and promoted hatred & evil. It became their everyday live.

They were not monsters. They were people who did horrible and monstrous things on the behalf of this ideology. And this is the scary part of the story.

#humanity #people #Auschwitz #genocide #history #monsters #ideology #warning

Growing up, Sesame Street taught me the importance of education, empathy, and kindness.

Bugs Bunny, on the other hand, taught me that revenge on my enemies should be quick, clever, and brutal.

“Trump demonstrated that spectacle is good for media profitability… media execs chose to prioritize profits over the protection of democracy & the pursuit of truth… journalism has a duty to stand up to power & to hold a lens up to society, not just broadcast the circus.

[Now they’re] enabling Musk to do exactly what Trump did. They’re trying to discern new rules when they should be focused on the bigger picture... standing up to the powerful in the public interest.”
https://time.com/6242268/twitter-elon-musk-media-coverage/

Some of you may have seen Elon Musk's endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s crazy antivax conspiracy theories today.

Over at post.news, I just posted a long-form piece about this, and about how science education needs to adapt to online disinformation.

Please a look. If you like it, boost it there or here or — if you dare — over on the birdsite.

https://post.news/article/2J7VEapSIpNWsrC0EawD8CopYqo

Good morning #mastodon hey #twitter escapees wondering how a post gets seen here? Yup, it’s different it depends on people, boosts, not an algorithm. 👇

I'm really glad you're here in Mastodon - yes, you, personally. You either helped build it early on and believed in it before the Twitter exodus, or you're part of that exodus and had to leave a platform that you cared about bc of your morals (or both?) but either way, you're here and I think that's really cool. Thanks for joining, contributing your thoughts, efforts, and time, and making this a great place to be. I appreciate it. ❤️

I'll be posting a series of posts showing the lifecycle of different berries.

Today, I'm starting with the blackberry. I hope you enjoy it!

#nature #life #photography #amazing #blackberry #fruits #berries #photo #photos #beautiful

@dotsonapage
@freemo
I'm delighted by all the goodies and benefits I happened into on mine here at qoto. The starting text block is at 64K, which is huge in comparison to most, for example. The description page at https://qoto.org/about/more will give you a rundown, and I think you'll be pleased and surprised by the list of features.

Despite the recent enormous surge in activity and memberships, the server is still speedy (as is the administration). I've had zero trouble with any unpleasant characters lurking about. The management is pro-active in handling issues quickly. The underlying reason for its existence is as a science and science education instance, so there are many intelligent and well-spoken folks about.

Even though there are now over 25,000 users, the admin is reachable and responsive.

Hope you check us out!

The Washington Post (my former employer that I am still fond of) has now had two reporters suspended from #Twitter for transparent BS. If the paper's leaders were wise they'd completely leave the site. Otherwise they're ceding editorial control to Elon Musk. #journalism

The group of people who are trying to divide the fediverse seem to have reached a new low.. They have a tool that lists how many instances block a particular instance, but it is highly manipulative.

For starters it is hand curated.. so they exclude blocks against their own instances and only includes instances they actually dislike.

Worse yet they curate a list ordered by "most blocked".. problem is they use the number of instances that block. They game the system by having large number of single-user instances. So instances in the top 50 may only be blocked by a few hundred people but still appear as if the blocks are significant....

This is why we need transparency, its why we need the https://UFoI.org

#mastoadmin #fediblock @ufoi #UFoI

An interaction with #ChatGPT showing that even the best AI program depends on the information given it, and can be very very wrong about things. (Though I appreciate the happy ending.)

Image from @edaross
https://newsie.social/@edaross@neurodifferent.me/109532286048979649

For those who don't know, #JohnMastodon was accidentally created when someone at a news org mistook the hashtag #JoinMastodon (which Twitter banned) for the name "John Mastodon." It has now become a running joke.

Amazing how one little mistake can propagate.

#BlackFriday. Happy Black Friday from an old Freedom Rider.

@maxeddy @MattBinder

Leaving #twitter is now a necessity, and here are four reasons why:

https://robertsonp.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-the-twitter-quitter