Summary
The Guardian has announced it will stop posting on Elon Musk’s platform, X, citing “often disturbing content” such as far-right conspiracy theories and racism.
The news outlet, with 27 million followers across over 80 accounts, stated that the US presidential election coverage on X reinforced its view that the platform had become “toxic.”
While The Guardian’s official accounts will withdraw, reporters may still use X for newsgathering.
This move follows similar actions by NPR, PBS, and other organizations concerned about the platform’s content standards under Musk’s ownership.
That took way too long.
Yeah it really shouldn’t take actual fascism to get people off predatory social media but here we are
Even then, most of them are still using it.
Can we get them to join Mastodon?
I think it’s ideal for new services. They can spin up an instance pretty easily through their existing IT department. They have total control and total freedom because they run the platform. Then federate with other instances to have a reach of millions instantly.
The only reason every news organization isn’t doing it is just bad marketing. As far as I know, there’s no marketing budget for mastodon.
i remember bbc had an experimental mastodon instance, but they dont seem to post anything anymore. i hope they’ll give an update on the trial, anything they found out good bad unworthy whatsoever.
Classic first adopter problem.
The thing is I believe that there’s a real argument for a use case for news organizations, governments, and colleges.
If they’re just seeking engagement, then they have to wait for the platform to grow. But this isn’t about that.
Many news organizations already have comment sections on their website, and they want to push out information on breaking news as quickly as possible. They need a platform to do those things. So, a lot of them use Facebook for embedded comments on the page and Xitter to breaking news. The thing is that they could use mastodon for both, and run their own instance, which would give them total control and not be at the mercy of Musk or Zuck.
Colleges use expensive proprietary messaging apps for students, clubs, and teachers that they can monitor and adjust to fit their needs. Mastodon offers that.
Governments sometimes end up in legal hot water due to freedom of information, etc. that comes with corporate social media. Mastodon offers the freedoms and controls necessary to disseminate vital information and to allow or reject posts as required by local laws.
The point is that Mastodon is an effective public facing communication system that also allows internal controls by the host.
The only publicity and marketing budget that the fediverse has is us, so any opportunity to promote it is our job. Government, education, news. These are the vital areas to promote.
This is the way
Bluesky is the number one downloaded social app right now.
Tempted to join just to help boost those numbers.
I did. Lol. Never gonna use it :P
I just checked in Android and it’s surprisingly #8. Friggin threads is #3 which is shocking cause I never hear or see anything about it. X is at #25 just behind mcdonalds lol. I’m not smart enough to know exactly what that means tho because pretty much everyone already has X/Twitter/whatever the fuck it’s called so of course that wouldn’t show up super high on there. I’ve also had multiple phones with it preloaded onto the OS.
Of course instagram and tik tok and Snapchat and Whatsapp are all pretty high up there so maybe it’s pretty solid evidence of that dumpster fire actually burning.
Threads posts show up on Instagram and if you want to view one it redirects you to the Play Store. I feel that’s why it’s so high up.
On my phone, it’s #1 under most downloaded of ALL apps hahaha
I get all the Guardian info from their unofficial account on Mastodon https://mas.to/@theguardian
If athletes leave Twitter then ESPN won’t post their tweets.
Just saying
I just love how we went from naming it “Twitter” to “Elon Musk’s platform, X”.
The intermediate step was “X, formerly known as Twitter”
Elon Musk’s platform, X, formerly known as Twitter.
I was kinda hoping it’d always stay like this.
Also a good one.
Xitter. Pronounced just the way you think.
there’s been a lot of myopic tunnel vision behavior from otherwise well-informed intelligent people over the last many years.
even now, people are shuffling about, carrying on like literally nothing just happened
get yourself informed and prepared. if not for you, then for your people. you have about a month and a half
even now, people are shuffling about, carrying on like literally nothing just happened
get yourself informed and prepared. if not for you, then for your people. you have about a month and a half
I live paycheck to paycheck and have a family to support. What preparation do you think I’m going to do beyond grabbing my ankles and praying?
Buy canned goods, look into how to perserve food, look into local support groups, and co-ops for social and food aspects.
Look into VPNs to make sure you have the ability to see what’s going on and not be limited internet wise.
Look into running for your local government, school board, whatever you can to limit the effect these assholes can do.
that’s the question everyone needs to be sitting down and thinking about. there’s no one answer for everyone, but “do nothing” isn’t one i would settle for
I’m glad you’ve got options.
Joining mutual aid groups, coops, triple-checking that you don’t have any subscriptions you don’t absolutely need and doing your best to just use FOSS (it’s free!) instead for the sake of your own limited paycheck, triple-check that you’re taking advantage of the free programs and resources available to you like libraries and buy-nothing collectives, try growing a bit of your own food in used jars and buckets, encourage your children to also take advantage of the free resources they might not even know are available to them and ways to save even more by simply reusing every last bit they can if they aren’t already? Get to know your neighbors if you have any time left in your day, parents of your kids’ classmates? I don’t know your situation - none of these might be realistic for you - but those are some of the free ways I could think of off the top of my head for preparing.
Hopefully many other news outlets around the world follow suit. I once emailed Yle, Finland’s state media outlet about how staying on Twitter doesn’t work and why Mastodon (and the Fediverse in general) would be the better option. Later they shut some of their Twitter accounts down… and continuing on other platforms such as TikTok.
Better than nothing, gotta reach the kids somehow.
Very good. Hopefully others will follow.
If we can get all of the sports reporters to head over, that might be the final death blow to Twitter.
Yes because fuck Elon. His own postings have a multiplicatior and things he does not like have the opposite. What’s the point of using his shitty right wing platform?
You have to engage with them? Dumbass, these people do not play fair. I hate how legacy media foolishly embraced these idiots playing fair and now guess what.
I miss Tom. He was just your friend and never pushed anything on you.
a lot of legacy media is owned by them more or less so why would it not
Better late than never
Lol. Good job.
All better! Global democracy is now unfucked, yay!
/s
My sincerest wish is that Elon Musk just waits until an X alternative gets big enough, buys it and destroys it in perpetuity. Save the people from their addiction to “likes” and “shares”.
He would be my absolute hero!!
I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it either.
