There is a lot of disdain here on #Mastodon and the #Fediverse for those who have chosen to stay on #X / #Twitter and other social media platforms. And I think that this is not helpful.
I mean, sure, in the case of governments, political leaders, and major news organizations, disdain away. But many activists and small-time business owners depend on having a large reach and good networking for their activities, and this reach might simply not be feasible on the Fediverse - especially if their primary focus is on a demographic underrepresented around here (as the Fediverse skews heavily towards white Europeans and North Americans).
Hating on these people accomplishes nothing useful - and worse, it contributes to the Fediverse’s well-deserved reputation for snobbery, which has driven a lot of people away.
So instead try empathy. Understand why such people make the choice to stay on other social media platforms, despite their problems. And instead of berating them for it, emphasize that these platforms will almost certainly get worse over time, due to the Enshittification cycle that all tech businesses touched by Silicon Valley venture capitalists must inevitably go through.
Suggest that developing a Fediverse presence is a useful “Plan B” for their social media efforts - and that among social media platforms, the Fediverse alone has the potential to develop into something better over time.
For some of us, please understand, the urgency to destroy X as a platform by denying it users is an imperative, because its owner is using his platform to make our lives measurably more dangerous with his hatred.
Using the platform is empowering Elon Musk to eliminate trans people from the world. For me, that’s not an airy-fairy thing, that’s my life and the lives of my loved ones.
So please, you might also have some understanding that for some of us, it’s not an intellectual exercise, it’s an existential threat.
@oldladyplays@wargamers.social
I absolutely agree that X must be destroyed. I just don’t think that berating X users for staying there is going to accomplish that.
We must make it easier for others to leave, and for that we must understand why they still stay there - and offer a welcoming off-ramp.
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe @oldladyplays@wargamers.social I think if you want to build the off ramp, then it’s in small community groups where you persuade amd shepherd people in.
Twitter grew at first because of word of mouth. I joined in 2009 and I left in 2022. I only joined because others were using it as a communications medium.
People often stay on their first network, there’s more inertia to move.
In the past two years Musk has been mask off. There’s no excuse for staying on other than “numbers” and “reach”
@onepict@chaos.social @oldladyplays@wargamers.social
Unfortunately, “reach” can be pretty important.
Let’s say you are a user in, for example, #Pakistan. How many Pakistani Mastodon instances are there? One? Two? For a country of 240 million people?
When almost no one in your country uses the #Fediverse , using Mastodon exclusively means you have effectively isolated yourself from your community.
I was able to do a clean break from Twitter when it got bought by Elon Musk, but that was because I was in a relatively privileged position. There are plenty of people around here who are interested in folklore and table-top RPGs, and share similar backgrounds. I miss some people from Twitter, but not enough to remain active there.
Others do not have this privilege, and we should acknowledge that.
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe @oldladyplays@wargamers.social are we sure the reach is still there though?
I’m not. I looked at the APC.org twitter account. The numbers are small.
You also can’t read threads if you’re not logged in.
So that reach is extremely limited. The Fediverse is small true. Plus it’s in us privileged folks to make the bridge, but then leave.
Then reward those folks who do come here and interact with them, buy stuff from them.
Their lively hood is under threat from a whim of Musk.
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe
And I’m saying, it’s nice that you have the freedom to approach it as an intellectual exercise. I, on the other hand, will use every tool at my disposal, including contempt if that’s what it takes, to induce people to leave that fascist site, because it’s a direct threat to me. There are literally people on that site who make money off identifying trans people for MAGA chuds to violently target.
You do it your way, and I’ll do it my way. And don’t expect much sympathy for a kinder gentler approach to people who are enabling an incipient genocide. If they don’t want to hear that they’re doing that, they know how to block and mute. But please don’t lecture me about how I need to be nice to people enabling my elimination.
I absolutely agree that X must be destroyed. I just don’t think that berating X users for staying there is going to accomplish that.
The way to destroy it is to reduce the number of users, and the only way to reduce those numbers is to convince people to stop using it.
The fear of moving away from a platform or program because it has a large user base stagnates us and leaves us at the mercy of them. This leads us to a reliance on a single focal point for any given use case, and when that fails or does something terrible we will have nowhere else to turn. It is imperative that we have a distribution of programs and platforms for technologies that our society relies upon. The only way this happens is if we use less popular ones and move away from those who try to exploit us. It may have difficulties and growing pains in doing so, but the long term benefits far outweigh the short term needs that so many are prioritizing.
2/ As an addendum, I want to make clear that I have absolutely zero sympathies for the social media platforms and their owners themselves. In fact, I consider them to be a dire threat to civilization, as their algorithms and owners promote hatred and bigotry of all kinds.
What I want to stress is empathy for many of the users on these platforms. Most of them stay there for reasons that make sense to them, after all.
And “empathy” does not mean “agreement”. But if you don’t take the time to understand their points of view, you are unlikely to convince them to give the #Fediverse a try.
So instead try empathy.
Empathy is a resource like any other, and when it comes to enshittification mine is spent and not to be wasted on those whose drive is not empathy, but “number go up”.
There’s no reason why those people who “oh so much” depend on having audience (meaning: “big number go up”) can’t be on both the Fediverse and a proprietary platform. But if they can’t even put that modicum of effort, they’re part of the problem. Intention doesn’t matter, only the result of the actions.
