If I worked for Mastodon, I would create a turn key solution for parties that want to set up a Mastodon server for all their party candidates.
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@waldschnecke @randahl it's here https://leavex.eu/politicians/
I have it open in Vivaldi because I want to start writing to the Italian ones but I keep postponing it...@gilraen79 @randahl Fantastic! That's it, thank you
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@randahl yesterday at FOSDEM there was a member of the European Parliament who was asked why so many politicians are still on X and her answer made total sense (sadly):
Politicians stay on X because journalists are still there, so they feel that if they leave they will become irrelevant / not be written about.
And journalists stay on X because politicians are there.
It’s a vicious cycle
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If I worked for Mastodon, I would create a turn key solution for parties that want to set up a Mastodon server for all their party candidates.
Ilhan Omar is still on X.
Bernie Sanders is still on X.
AOC is still on X.Make it easy for them to switch. Then make sure they are aware of this option.
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@randahl yesterday at FOSDEM there was a member of the European Parliament who was asked why so many politicians are still on X and her answer made total sense (sadly):
Politicians stay on X because journalists are still there, so they feel that if they leave they will become irrelevant / not be written about.
And journalists stay on X because politicians are there.
It’s a vicious cycle
@_elena @randahl I think there is a rise of fascism in many countries (which does not mean people became fascist). Fascist politicians will not move from fascist platforms. Worst, the non-fascist politicians are mimicking the fascist ones to obtain votes. For instance, in the Chilean presidential election, most of the candidates focused on migration because that was the main topic of the fascist candidate. Then, non-fascists will be where fascists are.
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@_elena @randahl I think there is a rise of fascism in many countries (which does not mean people became fascist). Fascist politicians will not move from fascist platforms. Worst, the non-fascist politicians are mimicking the fascist ones to obtain votes. For instance, in the Chilean presidential election, most of the candidates focused on migration because that was the main topic of the fascist candidate. Then, non-fascists will be where fascists are.
@_elena @randahl I think public universities could contribute to moving from fascist platforms, but few of them have taken this seriously. I know only two universities that are doing this by creating Mastodon instances for academics and students.
Daniel Hernández (@daniel@mstdn.degu.cl)
Attached: 1 image According to this #Wikidata query (https://w.wiki/HgMK), there are currently two public universities in the world with #Mastodon instances, managed by @KIT_Karlsruhe@social.kit.edu and @uniinnsbruck@social.uibk.ac.at, from Germany and Austria. Are there more?
Mastodon (mstdn.degu.cl)
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@VVLD1cl @randahl There's a campaign in Germany where people who are still on X, Instagram etc. encourage people to run a +1 strategy, which is stay where they are but run a Fediverse account too https://savesocial.eu/en/
They can then slowly promote their Fediverse account while they build up a following here, and then eventually shut down their old accounts.
There's also the @leavex campaign that collects e-mail addresses for European politicians https://leavex.eu/
Maybe you can team up?
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@VVLD1cl @randahl There's a campaign in Germany where people who are still on X, Instagram etc. encourage people to run a +1 strategy, which is stay where they are but run a Fediverse account too https://savesocial.eu/en/
They can then slowly promote their Fediverse account while they build up a following here, and then eventually shut down their old accounts.
There's also the @leavex campaign that collects e-mail addresses for European politicians https://leavex.eu/
Maybe you can team up?
We are planning to work closely with the Save Social campaign. And also to display the Executive on our platform.
There is also this awesome work being done in Canada by @smattymatty and team, advocating for politicians to come to the Fediverse
Home | Elbows Up Digital
Get Canadian Politicians on the Fediverse
Elbows Up Digital (elbowsupdigital.ca)
All these initiatives are going to be listed here
Network
Like-minded groups, movements, and individuals
Leave X - Protect Democracy (leavex.eu)
There are others we need to update.
Cc @VVLD1cl @randahl @gunchleoc @bjoernsta @ElbowsUpforDigitalSovereignty
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@randahl Dear God, do not encourage politicians who have high risk factors of being targeted by bad actors to create their own Mastodon servers.
Mastodon does NOT in ANY WAY have appropriate system safeguards against motivated bad-faith actors.
This is *one* example: https://bsky.app/profile/thisismissem.social/post/3m2nigx3tnc2h
(Emelia specifically works on Trust & Safety in the Fediverse)
@ceremus @randahl Since that post was made, Mastodon has introduced an admin option to hide public timelines from people that are not logged in.
One remaining problem is that we dont have any pre-emptive moderation tools to deal with harassment & dogpiling, like common dogwistles & slurs getting flagged for review. Moderators can only become aware of problems when users report them.
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@randahl yesterday at FOSDEM there was a member of the European Parliament who was asked why so many politicians are still on X and her answer made total sense (sadly):
Politicians stay on X because journalists are still there, so they feel that if they leave they will become irrelevant / not be written about.
And journalists stay on X because politicians are there.
It’s a vicious cycle
A cycle is only a cycle if you don't step out of it.
And I will also say this, if your political "success" depends on lazy journalists grabbing your lazy messages from X and slap dashing lazy articles with X screenshots of what you "said", then you are not the politician you think you are.
And for the others, what you fear is not what actually will happen. Stepping away from X will not make you irrelevant. On the contrary, it will put you in the spotlight.
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E Erik Moeller shared this topic
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If I worked for Mastodon, I would create a turn key solution for parties that want to set up a Mastodon server for all their party candidates.
Ilhan Omar is still on X.
Bernie Sanders is still on X.
AOC is still on X.Make it easy for them to switch. Then make sure they are aware of this option.
Randahl Fink They’re going to go where the people, and particularly the media, are. Not only are they not here, but quite a few of them got cold welcomes when they tried it out, and won’t be back.
They like their corporate ecosystem. They don’t like the rawness of the “real” Internet. This is why they all treated it like a smelly Star Trek convention before the iPhone came out.
