@dkiesow@Chanders I literally think it is partly down to how uncool academics were as young people and how Bsky's invite-only aspect plucks the strings of ego, whereas Mdon seems like being over in the nerd lane. Uncharitable? sure. Wrong? you tell me.
Anyway. I'm here. Bsky gave me the absolute super-creeps when I tried it last summer. Plus I was always ambivalent abt academic Twitter.
I'm very happy to share the news that the book, "A History of Digital Journalism" and authored by myself, Eugenia Mitchelstein, and Danielle Brown, is now under contract with Polity Press! Beyond the actual work on the substance of the book, I am really excited to work with these brilliant scholars. 1/x
@dankennedy_nu Many thanks Dan. This will be a largely synthetic work, rather than based on new empirical research, so your books will be key to telling the story.
I’m leery of the idea of piling on on this platform, so let me just say that this is in regard to the #mastodon vs #bluesky post that a lot of you are taking about today. Here’s what I think.
The problem with this critique in particular, and the idea of BlueSky in general, is that it is evidence that even the most thoughtful (and radical) thinkers, developers and workers in digital tech have internalized the ideology of SV digital capitalism over the past two decades.
What dominates everything is the idea that the “user” is king and that “user experience” is paramount. Whether taken from a position of realism (“you just can’t compete with a slick interface”) or compliment, the user (or “audience”) is treated as the ultimate judge by which any software or technology rises and falls.
This logic is inseparable from capitalist logic. Under it, capital will always win, because capital always gives the most pleasure.
Is there a #Commodon community on #bluesky? Or are there other academic communities there?
Not planning on going there, just genuinely curious. These communities are not here in any great strength after the last few months of 2022. My hunch was always just that they stated on Twitter, but as #Twitter seems increasingly and genuinely non-functional, I do wonder what is going on.
@Chanders At the same time, O'Connor was blaming the pope back when everyone was treating him like a victim. And she was right. I don't have a thimble full of sympathy for Bernard Law, who was evil. But I wouldn't have guessed at the time that he was no worse than JP2.
@Chanders Good grief. At my age, everything starts to blend together. The Phoenix and the Globe began their reporting in 2001-02, not 1991-92. So yes, Sinéad O’Connor was definitely ahead of her time.
“By comparison, every time I open up Bluesky what I immediately see is a bunch of jokes from my favorite twitter personalities. They’re having fun over there. The people who made Twitter good are all congregating on Bluesky. They’re relaxing and misbehaving. It’s awesome.” -@davekarpf
@davekarpf@Chanders Bluesky’s trans community and the broader movement of transphobic moral panic culture warring are on a collision course.
And Bluesky’s incomplete content moderation and governance strategies will inevitably be weaponized by the latter against the former in pursuit of growth and legitimacy.
@bkeegan@davekarpf@Chanders I wish more folks would start to reject social media as commodity out of hand. It will never provide for those who are marginalized.
For those who would like to deny the existence of a universal culture, I would just like to point out that children have been waking up reluctantly on weekdays and early on weekends across all cultures at all all times since the invention of childhood. Including my child today.
@CatherineFlick our nearly four year old spent the whole school week being woken up at 7am by me when sound asleep before I left for work. Today she chose to wake up at 6:30. 🤷🏻♂️
“It must be very complicated being George Lucas. On the one hand, you get to wake up inside a vast Scrooge McDuck money vault every morning. On the other, you have to live with the absolute mess Disney has made of your life’s work.”
I appreciate it when someone posts over here that “they are doing most of their posting at BlueSky these days so follow me there” so I can then unfollow them here.
I would add to the analysis by @sam- "I think the fundamental reason why we keep seeing more and more bullshit protocols and projects pop up like this is one fundamental mindset: a refusal to attribute the problems of the modern internet solely to capitalism"- is that a lot of the conversation about "user friendliness" lacks an analysis of the way slick design is used to mask fundamentally regressive infrastructure choices.
Nice to spend my birthday trying to get university finance to pay for image bank images already funded with a grant before the deadline for the whole project explodes.
I’ve generally been pretty supportive/ forgiving of Biden. Even his support for Israel, not because I agree with the policy, but I can’t imagine him temperamentally or politically doing anything else.
But linking the border bill and Ukraine aid has been an utter debacle. Truly a failure of political skill and a massive strategic unforced error.
“Republicans as a whole aren’t a viable negotiating partner because any one Republican, including any Republican at the negotiating table, can be quickly outflanked on the right and lose any bargaining power.
Democrats participate anyway because, to give it the most most favorable interpretation I can, they believe that they will come out looking better having tried and having exposed GOP bad faith. No matter that this has failed to come to fruition countless times in the past decade.”