Climate scientists flee Twitter [to Mastodon] as hostility surges (www.france24.com)
from otter@lemmy.ca to technology@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 16:42
https://lemmy.ca/post/27937447

EDIT: I didn’t notice in the original post, the article is from 2023

cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/19707239

Researchers have documented an explosion of hate and misinformation on Twitter since the Tesla billionaire took over in October 2022 – and now experts say communicating about climate science on the social network on which many of them rely is getting harder.

Policies aimed at curbing the deadly effects of climate change are accelerating, prompting a rise in what experts identify as organised resistance by opponents of climate reform.

Peter Gleick, a climate and water specialist with nearly 99,000 followers, announced on May 21 he would no longer post on the platform because it was amplifying racism and sexism.

While he is accustomed to “offensive, personal, ad hominem attacks, up to and including direct physical threats”, he told AFP, “in the past few months, since the takeover and changes at Twitter, the amount, vituperativeness, and intensity of abuse has skyrocketed”.

#technology

threaded - newest

otter@lemmy.ca on 29 Aug 2024 16:44 next collapse

The bit in the square brackets in the title was mine, because that’s what I went into the article to look for. If you’re on Mastodon and interested in that content:

The text from the article:

Glaciologist Ruth Mottram had more than 10,000 followers on Twitter but left in February and joined an alternative scientists’ forum powered by Mastodon -– a crowdfunded, decentralised grouping of social networks founded in 2016.

“It’s really been a revelation in many ways. It’s a much quieter and more thoughtful platform,” she told AFP.

On Mastodon, “I haven’t had any abuse at all or even people questioning climate change. I think we’d become far too used to it on Twitter… I had blocked loads of accounts over on the birdsite (Twitter),” she said.

fossilesque@mander.xyz on 29 Aug 2024 18:18 next collapse

Ruth is a very kind person, her posts are amazing!

fiend_unpleasant@piefed.social on 29 Aug 2024 18:36 next collapse

I gave her a follow. She seems like a nice lady. I hope she enjoys the fediverse a little more than the "nether world"

madjo@feddit.nl on 29 Aug 2024 19:46 collapse

Is there a list of all scientists that made the move to Masto?

ohellidk@sh.itjust.works on 29 Aug 2024 17:17 next collapse

I have no clue why all these normal, non-racist non-political people still use twitter. It was bought for the obvious purpose of providing a safe space for conservatives, racists, incels, and other outcasts to society. Mastodon is a perfect replacement for it, and you can pick an instance that suits you. It isn’t owned by a mentally unstable billionaire!

_sideffect@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 17:29 next collapse

Very true, but at the same time I feel that it’s a place where I won’t get censored just because google randomly thought my comment was offensive

UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 19:17 collapse

People get censored on Twitter all the time.

demesisx@infosec.pub on 29 Aug 2024 17:48 next collapse

I agree with this assessment for the most part but one side of me plays devil’s advocate on this:

I sort of came to realize in the end that it was possibly purchased to push all leftists off the platform, allowing Musk to compete with Google and Facebook in heavily manipulating and censoring discourse in American society (and let’s be clear, they did. Just because it was an attempt to help “the good guys in the DNC” by Google and Facebook doesn’t make it not an open and shut case of treasonous manipulation of discourse.

As an absolutely prolific Twitter user pre-2016, I was very quick to leave….but at the same time, I eventually came to the sad conclusion that Xitter (pronounced Shitter) actually does need leftist voices as long as it exists. IMO, it (and Google and Facebook) should be dissolved, open sourced, decentralized, and socialized for the crime of treason/undermining democracy.

We (people of the fediverse with a strong sense of integrity) basically fled to our own decentralized, open source platform where we have 1 millionth of the reach with our voices. Being around such a cesspool where astroturfers working for Progressive think tanks and their conservative buddies would gaslight me about the popularity of things like Single Payer or student loan reform…which was not great for my well-being…But let’s not pretend that leftists that remain on the platform are bad people for doing so. An echo chamber has a way of brainwashing people. So, conservatism would be even stronger had more of our brethren not stayed.

Just a small counterpoint. I strongly dislike conservatism and the conservative ethos of “fuck you, got mine”…but perhaps they were playing 4D chess with us a bit.

[deleted] on 29 Aug 2024 17:53 collapse

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[deleted] on 29 Aug 2024 17:54 collapse

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vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 29 Aug 2024 17:59 next collapse

Look at that! We both win!

Traister101@lemmy.today on 29 Aug 2024 18:19 collapse

Everyone from the lemmy.blahaj.zone instance that I’ve interacted with or seen have been trolls. Those guys are super weirdos idk what their deal is. It’s baffling seeing what they claim to stand for

[deleted] on 29 Aug 2024 18:23 next collapse

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harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 29 Aug 2024 19:15 collapse

I thought they were supposed to be a pro-trans, inclusive community but I’m thinking it’s mostly just astro-terfing trolls. Kinda like ml or lemmygrad or beehaw aren’t really leftists, just pro-authoritarian incoherent apologist edgelords.

It’s like they’re not even trying to interact with good faith.

Traister101@lemmy.today on 29 Aug 2024 19:49 next collapse

I wouldn’t be shocked if it was astro-terfing

Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 07 Sep 2024 17:07 collapse

Tell me more about Beehaw, I know about the trouble with lemmy.ml and lemmygrad, but so far haven’t heard anything about Beehaw.

harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 07 Sep 2024 19:27 collapse

Well, beehaw is kinda like ml but less hinged at times. I don’t block instances, only users and communities. Some of beehaws communities are quite good and friendly. The politics ones…well, I don’t see those anymore.

Sometimes it feels like there grownups in there who grasp nuance and empathy and at other times it feels like it’s full of ex-4channers who think they’ve grown up.

beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 29 Aug 2024 19:16 next collapse

Idk either. But it’s really easy to stay where you’re used to, rather than do the work to set something new up

UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 19:16 next collapse

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

Twitter hasn’t dropped below the critical mass of users necessary for the system to become useless. It’s still a major artery of media and social commerce, just one that’s been littered with landmines. Yes, its far more dangerous and difficult to navigate now, but its still better than posting into the uninhabited wilderness that is Bluesky or the exact same basket of shitty engagement posts that is Threads.

tabular@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 19:35 next collapse

Is it actually better than nothing though?

Either these are tolerant folks or someone we might be better off if they stayed on 4twitter.

unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov@lemmy.sdf.org on 29 Aug 2024 19:59 collapse

Counterpoint: Twitter will continue to maintain a critical mass of users until enough people move somewhere else to make it irrelevant. Continuing to use it only serves to further credentialize the platform, making it even less likely that users will find a new home someplace else.

UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 20:19 collapse

Continuing to use it only serves to further credentialize the platform

The vast majority of users don’t care whether the platform is credentialized or not.

unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov@lemmy.sdf.org on 30 Aug 2024 01:02 collapse

Respectfully, you were the one who pointed out the impact of the Network Effect.

The adoption of a product by an additional user can be broken into two effects: an increase in the value to all other users (total effect) and also the enhancement of other non-users’ motivation for using the product (marginal effect).

Thus, users don’t need to understand the credentials of the platform if the network effect is strong enough, but as users leave the network, the value (credentials) of the platform as a whole decreases.

Another way to think about it is that the amount Twitter “matters” is directly related to how much we collectively agree it matters. While not directly transferable, I’d suggest that Keynes’ Animal Spirits concept can help us to understand why this might be the case - prevailing attitudes towards a platform can have a profound impact on their value.

nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip on 29 Aug 2024 19:30 next collapse

It’s still usable if you’re not on English side of Twitter.

For example, recent Indonesian political movement relied on Twitter for discussion and updates. Mastodon or any fediverse is simply too niche and most people don’t have money to fund local general instance. There were several local fedi instance (Mastodon and Lemmy), but all of them quickly dead for low donation.

Japanese-side is still alive (in positive manner) but people are making backup account on Bluesky and Japanese Misskey instances.

fubarx@lemmy.ml on 29 Aug 2024 20:11 collapse

The otherwise sensible people I know who are still on Twitter all say it’s because of a specific interest or group, and the community of people around it who are all on there as well. They all hate what it’s become but put up with it because nobody is sure where else to go.

There’s also a sense of FOMO when it comes to realtime news updates. Until government, news media, and personalities go somewhere and take all their followers with them, it will be hard to break away.

don@lemm.ee on 29 Aug 2024 17:39 next collapse

Ah Twitter. Nearing its evolution as the internet’s premier perpetually-full septic tank.

vegeta@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 17:42 next collapse

4chan—>8chan—>Xchan?

SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 18:48 collapse

Light speed -> ridiculous speed -> ludicrous speed

“They’ve gone to plaid!”

Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee on 29 Aug 2024 17:48 next collapse

That’s great news. Looking forward to having more climate scientists on Mastodon.

NineMileTower@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 19:16 collapse

Hell, I would like to have ANYONE on Mastodon. It feels so dead.

madjo@feddit.nl on 29 Aug 2024 19:47 next collapse

Start following hashtags of things you’re interested in. And interact with people in those threads.

daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 29 Aug 2024 21:02 collapse

Does it?

My Mastodon feed is more alive than my twitter feed used to be years before its demise. And also in my native language, if I were to follow english speaking people I’d be overwhelmed.

The trick is not to rely to much on the instance local feed and start following people from every instance.

Wiz@midwest.social on 29 Aug 2024 22:13 next collapse

Yes, and…

You can follow (and use) hashtags of topics you like.

Default_Defect@midwest.social on 30 Aug 2024 00:09 collapse

Every time I give it another shot and look for things and people to follow, I find nothing.

fossilesque@mander.xyz on 29 Aug 2024 18:17 next collapse

nathanlesage.github.io/academics-on-mastodon/

gcheliotis@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 18:23 next collapse

Among the sad stories about climate scientists having to deal with misinformation and abuse on the regular, suddenly, a unicorn: a statement purportedly by Musk that I wholeheartedly agree with:

Musk wrote in January: “People on the right should see more ‘left-wing’ stuff and people on the left should see more ‘right-wing’ stuff. But you can just block it if you want to stay in an echo chamber.”

Of course with the average Xitter post becoming ever more toxic, most people that have anything of value to add will probably leave sooner or later, whether lefties or righties or whatever.

madjo@feddit.nl on 29 Aug 2024 19:50 next collapse

When I still used Twitter, I followed people and that was the only content I wanted to read. I didn’t care about content from people I wasn’t following.

That’s why I’m now on Masto. No algorithm to decide that I should also get the very much not valuable opinions of xXx_nOnwoke_1488 in my timeline.

suction@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 22:51 collapse

“Both sides”.

fiend_unpleasant@piefed.social on 29 Aug 2024 18:31 next collapse

I think this is going to happen more and more. As the delta semi-morons continue to erode civilization we are just going to "take our ball and go home" so to speak. We can science, tech, and culture around them and they will eventually be left out in their echo chamber desert fighting each other over the last minions meme scraps.

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 07:05 collapse

There is

they will eventually be left out in their echo chamber desert fighting each other

that here too.

But I agree that not feeding platforms profiting from conflict is the ultimate solution.

bappity@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 18:33 next collapse

You can find utterly vile replies from blue checks on that site now, even on the most heavenly, innocent, morally correct tweet. It’s insane.

Allonzee@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 20:14 next collapse

I just wish there were a way to preserve these records in a format with enough longevity to survive until the next sapient species evolves after we destroy ourselves and the human habitability of the planet for a couple million years.

They could use the warning against indulging greed and willful ignorance, and we deserve to have others laughing at our species’ expense through time. We inherited paradise just to set it on fire eyes wide open. It’s an extremely low bar, but I hope the next global apex predator chooses to do better.

BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world on 30 Aug 2024 00:34 collapse

We’re currently rhyming with history from less than 100 years ago (the rise of fascism), I don’t think having a warning is enough to prevent it from happening again.

cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 29 Aug 2024 20:15 next collapse

Considering Meta is doubling down on disinformation, more people should go to Mastodon and Bsky over Threads or Twitter.

Moah@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 29 Aug 2024 21:33 next collapse

Is blue sky really ok? Considering who started it…

cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 29 Aug 2024 22:38 next collapse

i don’t think jack funded it he was just an original board member; but he left the board a month or two ago.

ripcord@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 01:32 collapse

Yeah, it seems pretty good.

SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org on 30 Aug 2024 05:59 collapse

I’d agree. For now at least it’s pretty good.

Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 07 Sep 2024 17:13 collapse

Hell no, fuck Bluesky. There is no reason not to adopt ActivityPub when trying to build an open, federated Twitter alternative. Except for power and control over the platform, its core protocol and ecosystem. Screw these guys, use Mastodon or anything on the Fediverse.

cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 07 Sep 2024 17:41 collapse

except they adopted atproto because it fixed issues with activitypub portability and sharing

Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 07 Sep 2024 22:47 collapse

This is their stupid excuse. They could still implement ActiviyPub as a secondary federation protocol. (Bluesky <-> Bluesky via ATProto, Bluesky <-> Fediverse via ActivityPub). They decided against it. It’s an intentional choice, and they’re just making up excuses.

cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 07 Sep 2024 23:58 collapse

i mean that’s pretty much already done via third party and endorsed by the bsky team (i can already follow mastodon users on bsky and bsky users on mastodon);

github.com/snarfed/bridgy-fed

(shameless self promotion; my bsky account on my mastodon instance: tech.lgbt/@netkitten.net@bsky.brid.gy)

Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 08 Sep 2024 00:56 collapse

There are 3 issues with this:

  1. This is a third-party project, not an official part of Bluesky. Bluesky was never meant to work with ActivityPub, that was a clear design choice. This is just a workaround.
  2. It’s opt-in, meaning most accounts will never get federated, because people just aren’t aware that something like this exists. This especially applies to new users.
  3. It relies on a centralized service, Bluesky and ActivityPub servers don’t talk directly to each other, which would be required for true federation. Federation is always decentralized, this is the exact opposite.

I don’t understand why anyone should use Bluesky with cheap hacks to attempt to fix Bluesky’s poor design choices and or utter incompetence, if they could just use Mastodon and federate with the Fediverse over ActivityPub by default.

From a user perspective, Bluesky is just Mastodon with a recommendation algorithm. There is no other protocol required for this, everything could easily be done using ActivityPub exclusively. I will never care about Bluesky, since it tries to be the new Twitter, but the enshittification of Twitter began when they introduced their crappy algorithm, instead of just displaying tweets of accounts you follow in chronological order (like Mastodon does it).

cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 08 Sep 2024 01:11 collapse

to be fair it was originally not opt in but it was mastodon users who made an issue about it and forced the opt in version

and bsky has multiple algorithms because individual issues can create lists and feeds tailored to their needs.

it also has a straight forward following feed

jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 20:36 next collapse

If we can’t abandon Obvious Disaster Twitter we definitely can’t abandon the obvious disaster that is everything we think of as normal that’s driving civilization off a cliff.

homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 20:38 next collapse

Reality: you can stop fascism by deleting the app

Everyone: doesn’t

Siegfried@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 20:49 collapse

Oh, i didnt know this was like IT. i’ll tell my russians friends just to ignore putin’s regime

Eximius@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 22:16 next collapse

If by ignore, you mean stop paying taxes and working in any capacity for government in one go, yes would work. The only fear is being singled out, if more than 0.5% of the people do it, army wont even have the guts to get tanks out, they will join.

Siegfried@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 23:59 next collapse

Touché

Venezuela has ~70% of the people against the regime, (nearly 90% counting the 5M that were not allowed to vote) and the needle isn’t even moving.

And in Russia being “singled out” is apparently a national tradition.

Sorry, I may be over pessimistic today.

Eximius@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 08:59 collapse

I guess that’s a fair example. But logically sounds impossible for such control over the population to be had. If a group went out to the streets to oust the government, you would say at least maybe 45% would join.

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 07:01 collapse

No. Dunno where did you take that 0.5% from, it’s not empirically confirmed by anything.

Like 20% if you want to see civil war. Like 40% if you want to see regime change.

Eximius@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 08:46 collapse

There is the semi-usually-known research that suggests 3.5% is enough for non-violent protests to reach changes. www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/chen15682

0.5% is 1 in 200 people, essentially everyone knowing personally one person who is against the government. Maybe it isn’t enough.

But also, 0.5% homogenously (instead of country-wide being concentrated in Moscow), would be 600k people peacefully marching in Moscow streets

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 08:58 collapse

It doesn’t work. It’s some urban legend that this is sufficient. Even those 600k may or may not be stopped by a threat of real ammo being used. I’m not even talking about coordination.

One can “prove” anything with selectively chosen statistics.

Eximius@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 09:03 collapse

They werent selectively chosen. " An original, aggregate data set of all known major nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006 is used to test these claims." As well as any researcher who isn’t a complete buffoon would only look at statistics that has only a 2-3 sigma chance of only being stochastic noise.

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 09:07 collapse

The set of indicators, of course, was selectively chosen. The authors, of course, have decided which of these they consider important and which don’t, that is, decided upon weights and criteria.

Eximius@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 09:20 collapse

That is complete unfounded fluff words. No paper would be published if it was biased and as selective as you say. Look at the paper at least briefly and we can discuss.

I think you can download it here: researchgate.net/…/240678278_Why_Civil_Resistance…

Of interest maybe would be the indicators of a campaigns success:

The outcomes of these campaigns are identiªed as “success,” “limited success,” or “failure.” To be designated a “success,” the campaign must have met two criteria: (1) its stated objective occurred within a reasonable period of time (two years) from the end of the campaign; and (2) the campaign had to have a discernible effect on the outcome.40 A “limited success” occurs when a campaign obtained signiªcant concessions (e.g., limited autonomy, local power sharing, or a non-electoral leadership change in the case of dictatorship) although the stated objectives were not wholly achieved (i.e., territorial independence or regime change through free and fair elections).41 A campaign is coded a “failure” if it did not meet its objectives or did not obtain signiªcant concessions.42

AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 15:43 next collapse

No paper would be published if it was biased and as selective as you say.

That is incredibly naive of you and truly points to your lack of credibility.

Eximius@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 20:20 collapse

  1. You completely disregarded the paper.
  2. Completely disregarded peer review as a thing without any grounding.
  3. Went ad hominem as a hail marry.

Bye.

AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 21:13 collapse

Tell me more about how antivax scientists didn’t successfully publish a paper with tons of biases and nonsensical findings.

Eximius@lemmy.world on 01 Sep 2024 11:09 collapse

You’ll have to actually reference a published paper for that claim.

AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world on 01 Sep 2024 15:49 collapse

lmao

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_autism_fraud

Eximius@lemmy.world on 04 Sep 2024 17:06 collapse

“[The paper] admitted that the research did not “prove” an association between the MMR vaccine and autism.”

“He was reportedly asked to leave the Royal Free Hospital [around 2001] after refusing a request [presumably around 1999] to validate his 1998 Lancet paper with a controlled study.”

You could say it took to long to retract the paper, which was essentially full of data-fudged “maybes”. But it supposedly was “science” until it was uncovered as just fraud.

Apart from the data fudging, and intense bullshit and hype-train pushing by the now deregistered “professional” [fraudster].

Sorry, this just shows the resillience of publishing, and the scientific community to fraud and [alleged] corruption.

No lmao.

AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world on 05 Sep 2024 15:12 collapse

The paper wasn’t retracted until 2010 lol. The point is that fraudulent papers can be published.

Still lmao.

This just shows the resilience of publishing, and the scientific community to fraud and [alleged] corruption

Uh… sure it does, buddy.

Eximius@lemmy.world on 05 Sep 2024 19:07 collapse

In just the same way you can get away from taxes by lying vehemently… he lost his job and reputation in less than three years.

Since the paper itself was okay, but the data was falsified, obviously it was hard to prove the data was false until other studies not only showed it, but also his reputation was discredited and (presumably) investigations finished.

Incorrect data can happen even to a good paper in good faith due to instrument error.

The paper in question, again, was lots of “maybes” and no direct conclusions. The earth shattering conclusions were reached in press conferences where the guy lied vehemently, and the journalists ate it up like coke.

AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world on 06 Sep 2024 00:55 collapse

REMINDER: THIS IS WHERE WE STARTED

MY POINT = PROVEN CORRECT

PLEASE KEEP MOVING THE GOALPOST

Eximius@lemmy.world on 06 Sep 2024 09:03 collapse

The goal posts were not moved at any point. It was a discussion of the situation, as it is.

Please look at the paper you refer to: www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/…/abstract It was only retracted because of “In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were “consecutively referred” and that investigations were “approved” by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record.” It was retracted due to fraud. I don’t think it’s in any way wise to blame the possibility of fraud on the peer review process. Just as fraud can happen in any field because some people decide to pathologically lie.

However, besides the fraudulent ethics, the paper is fine, and as always previously reiterated multiple times. All it says are a bunch of maybes. It makes no extraordinary claims, it holds no conclusive proof, just a lot of “this maybe hints to something”. The paper is publishable.

The actual scandal was caused by the Wakefield lying profusely in media.

These are two different things: what Wakefield said in media, and what Wakefield said in the paper. You should separate them.

AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.world on 06 Sep 2024 22:51 collapse

lol ok bud

tourist@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 22:22 collapse

Pardon my ignorance. I may have a mild brain injury.

Could you perhaps rephrase?

I’m not sure if I understood what you said.

Siegfried@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 23:54 collapse

In IT (the movie and, i presume, also in the book) ::: spoiler spoiler The kids realize that IT feeds on attention and that the only way to fight it is by ignoring it :::

Imo, shitter (X) is a cesspool as it is now, but I dont believe that leaving it to the hordes is a solution to anything. We need a better approach to deal with this people.

tourist@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 06:59 next collapse

Ah, that makes sense. I thought you meant IT as in information technology. Was very confused.

Brain still good yey

edit: typo. perhaps I need to make that appointment

gwen@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 30 Aug 2024 07:16 collapse

??? no he feeds on fear, the way they defeat it is not being afraid

MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml on 29 Aug 2024 21:13 next collapse

That was a year ago.

Teppichbrand@feddit.org on 29 Aug 2024 21:15 next collapse

Never understood why nobody calls him an “american oligarch”

queue@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 29 Aug 2024 22:20 next collapse

Oligarchs are only for the rich outside of the Thirteen Eyes. American oligarchs are called lobbyists and job creators.

azertyfun@sh.itjust.works on 29 Aug 2024 22:42 collapse

I mean, he’s actively supporting the opposition (Trump) right now. Were Trump to win then he’d certainly be in a very good position within Trump’s desired oligarchy. Until then he’s just a very rich asshole whose main major concrete political power comes from his ownership of Twitter and (largely artificial) audience. If anything his support of Trump kneecaps him in his ability to run his businesses as the Biden and hypothetical Harris administrations are not as likely to let him keep getting away with all the blatantly illegal shit he keeps doing.

Michael Bloomberg OTOH fits the term pretty well, as he’s a very major donor to the DNC and that certainly makes him very close to the ear of the president and policy decisions.

andros_rex@lemmy.world on 29 Aug 2024 21:18 next collapse

The Franklin Standards need to be on everyone’s radar. They don’t want your kids to learn about climate change.

Explain how and why Earth’s climate changes over time.

Climate changes continually at all time scales and Earth’s climate has never remained constant.

The Earth’s climate has varied greatly between glacial advances and retreats that correlate with cyclical oscillations in Earth’s orbit around the Sun (Milankovitch Cycles, precession).

In addition to being affected by the climate, the biosphere also has a significant effect on the climate, including self-regulation and resiliency (carbon-oxygen cycle, hydrological cycle).

Humans are just one of the many influences on Earth’s climate (urban heat island effect, wetland drainage, deforestation, agriculture).

Computer models of climate are simplified simulations of the real world, and make prognostications that are inherently uncertain.

Global weather forecast models (short term) and climate models (long term) are quite different in their design, their strengths, weaknesses, value, limitations, and uncertainties.

The wording is subtle, but you can see how they are attacking the idea of anthropogenic climate change. (There’s similar fuckery with evolution and some subtle anti-trans stuff.) Oil and gas companies have a lot of money and can afford a lot of propaganda. No states have adopted these standards yet - we think Florida and Texas will go first, then Oklahoma will follow. But this information warfare.

BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world on 30 Aug 2024 00:32 next collapse

Humans are just one of the many influences on Earth’s climate

Proceeds to list a bunch of other things that are the fault of humans.

notsofunnycomment@mander.xyz on 30 Aug 2024 00:49 collapse

Thanks for pointing this out. The level of misguidedness is painful.

andros_rex@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 13:20 collapse

It’s frustrating, because you can tell they spent a lot of time making the words weaselly enough. The one about climate models especially enrages me, because yeah, they’re predictive tools with limitations (which I’ve discussed with students when I’ve taught with climate sims). But I know my old department head (who used to compliment kiddos for forgoing masks in 2020) is going to have those “uncertainties” do a lot of work.

psycho_driver@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 04:04 next collapse

The dumb masses always eventually follow the smart people. Reddit was full of mostly smart people in the beginning, if you can believe that.

LunchMoneyThief@links.hackliberty.org on 30 Aug 2024 04:15 next collapse

The decline started somewhere around 2011-2013.

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 06:59 next collapse

Oh, that’s when I first saw that place. Left surprised that there are still normal forums in the interwebs.

NostraDavid@programming.dev on 30 Aug 2024 07:20 next collapse

I blame Digg for failing. It increased Reddit’s popularity too fast, which was a bad thing bringing too many people, fucking up the culture reddit had built (which wasn’t much, but it was ours).

todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee on 30 Aug 2024 13:48 collapse

Oh man, in 2024 I never thought I’d see some Reddit oldhead still complaining about the eternal September following Digg’s fall…

zeppo@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 20:28 collapse

It got much, much worse a few years after that. I was amazed to see my first “conservative” on reddit.

namingthingsiseasy@programming.dev on 30 Aug 2024 13:47 next collapse

And this is why I’m perfectly happy with Lemmy being the size that it is. There certainly are trade-offs - I wish niche communities were bigger - but is it worth bringing in all the other crap that comes in, like all the shit you see on Twitter? No, in my opinion.

SuperSaiyanSwag@lemmy.zip on 30 Aug 2024 14:52 next collapse

I remember that /r/all was actually pretty educational back in the day. There were specific users that you would know by their user names that always posted something insightful.

nikaaa@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 14:58 collapse

isn’t that why the hippie movement ended?

menemen@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 06:10 next collapse

I am on Mastodon for 5 years now (fuck it is really 5 years since August 2019, what the hell) and just can’t get into it. It just feels lonely over there. What am I doing wrong?

Tbh, I think it is the post statistics thing. It says “1 reply”, then I click at ot and it has 4 replies and it ALWAYS says “0 favorites” even when 10 people comment how great that post was.

otter@lemmy.ca on 30 Aug 2024 06:20 next collapse

Did you use Twitter much before then? Some people just don’t like the format. I use it to get updates on some things, but I don’t use it as much as Lemmy (or Reddit before that).

If you did use Twitter, perhaps the content you followed back then still didn’t make its way to Mastodon (or it went to bluesky/threads?)

Last thing you could try is following more people. I find that fediverse platforms need you to seek out content more actively, while old profit driven social media platforms were constantly seeking engagement. On top of that there just isn’t as much content on any of the new platforms compared to the older ones.

That all being said, the quality of the content is equal or better every time

Microw@lemm.ee on 30 Aug 2024 08:33 next collapse

The statistics thing is a downside of how Mastodon implements ActivityPub.

Two possibilites:

  1. I think you can simply hide the counts if it irritates you.

  2. You can install Fedifetcher to pull in missing interactions to your local server: github.com/nanos/FediFetcher

menemen@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 22:30 collapse

I’ll have a look at that fetcher thing. Thx.

fpslem@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 12:22 next collapse

What sort of stuff do you like? Maybe some folks can make some good recommendations to jump-start a more interesting experience.

Recommendations and boosts from other users are how I’ve discovered interesting people there, and at this point, my feed feels just as full as my old twitter feed.

If you like news, a lot of breaking news is happening on Mastodon much more accurately and faster than on Twitter. There are a LOT of publications on there now, here are a few off the top of my head:

  • Polygon (@polygon@mastodon.social)
  • The Conversation (@TheConversation@newsie.social)
  • The Intercept (@theintercept@jouna.host)
  • Voice of America (@VOANews@mastodon.social)
  • Ars Technica (@arstechnica@mastodon.social)
  • Semafor (@Semafor@flipboard.com)
  • Kotaku (@Kotaku@flipboard.com)
  • The Christian Science Monitor (@csmonitor@flipboard.com)
  • Fast Company (@FastCompany@flipboard.com)
  • The 19th (@19thnews@flipboard.com)
  • Vox (@Vox@flipboard.com)

There are a lot more local news sources too, so depending on where you live, you can probably follow news for your specific area. The account @FediFollows@social.growyourown.services regularly bundles up follow suggestions for different regions, interests, and topics. If you go that account and search for a hashtag (i.e., #texas) you’ll get a lot of active and high-quality local accounts to follow.

Lemminary@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 12:40 next collapse

For me, it was the interface. I found it rough around the edges and not as inviting as Twitter used to be. I know it’s seen as superficial but UX/UI is important.

Like, for example, to create a post or reply, the input was on the left navigation panel for some reason. I used to have trouble visually separating one post from the next in my head until I got used to it. Also, the way thread comments were nested could’ve been improved. And why did it only show me the top 5 trending news stories? Why couldn’t I browse more? Idk, overall I felt like I was fighting the UI mentally.

I think Lemmy did a better job subtly improving on the details. I didn’t see Mastodon doing that much when I was on there.

GrammarPolice@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 13:14 next collapse

I know it’s seen as superficial but UX/UI is important to me.

Most of the people telling you it’s superficial are programming nerds who themselves are intimidated by UX design so use cope to justify its trivialness.

Lemminary@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 13:34 collapse

I know what you mean. I’ve had more than one conversation with devs who didn’t understand design basics.

SilentKnightOwl@slrpnk.net on 30 Aug 2024 16:36 collapse

What platform are you on? There are lots of alternative apps for both iOS and Android, and they can be customized beyond the defaults as well. I primarily use Moshidon on Android, and it’s great.

oberstoffensichtlich@feddit.org on 30 Aug 2024 12:53 next collapse

You need a couple of people to follow, then it’s great! I met most of my Twitter folks on conferences and such. The majority has now moved to Mastodon. It’s mostly programming folks.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 30 Aug 2024 16:33 collapse

But what if I don’t want to follow people, but topics?

That’s why I’m here, and one thing that made Twitter acceptable.

oberstoffensichtlich@feddit.org on 30 Aug 2024 20:17 collapse

Twitter is people based as well, no?

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 30 Aug 2024 21:18 collapse

Idk, I haven’t used it in years. But I thought you could just follow hashtags, no?

I don’t use Mastodon either, so maybe that’s already a thing, idk. It was advertised as “federated Facebook,” and I really don’t like the people-based nature of Facebook (though TBF, haven’t used Facebook in… 10 years?).

oberstoffensichtlich@feddit.org on 31 Aug 2024 00:24 collapse

There are hashtags on Mastodon as well.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 31 Aug 2024 06:00 collapse

Can I follow them in a reasonable way? I don’t really care who makes the content, I care that it’s reasonably engaging.

oberstoffensichtlich@feddit.org on 31 Aug 2024 10:10 collapse

Yes, very easy > explore > hashtags > select follow icon in top right

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 31 Aug 2024 15:04 collapse

Maybe I’ll check it out then.

Gsus4@mander.xyz on 30 Aug 2024 20:46 collapse

Twitter’s format feels a bit like yelling into the void and waiting for replies…you may luck out and get some engagement from a hub or a small subgraph of the network. Mastodon makes that stronger by removing the algorithm (I’d like there to be a user-customizable feed sort algo by an array of parameters, not sure what the technical limitations to that are: processing, security?)

Comment trees feel better (to me at least), because there is a hierarchical origin, a native indexing by topic>post>comment>countercomment…it sort of resembles how we relate with the world or navigate maps.

davidfield@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 07:02 next collapse

We should as a community ensure Twitter\X lives forever…

If only as a place to keep certain social media users “entertained”

In all seriousness it does concern me how often I see such a wide variety of news agencies quote Twitter considering the amount of hate that goes on there

NostraDavid@programming.dev on 30 Aug 2024 07:18 next collapse

It’s a containment site; has been for a while.

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 30 Aug 2024 12:47 next collapse

Except the majority of mainstream news outlets use it as a source for 90% of their coverage.

ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one on 30 Aug 2024 16:13 collapse

This is why we need the SCP Foundation.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 30 Aug 2024 16:32 collapse

Not what you intended, but:

scp /dev/zero root@x.com:/path/to/databases
ansiz@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 11:24 next collapse

It’s because the news media industry as a whole has stuck with Twitter as their primary social media site. It’s kinda hilarious how much they seem to like it and how much time they spend there.

PhAzE@lemmy.ca on 30 Aug 2024 13:55 next collapse

That’s dangerous. Look at what Fox is doing, as an entertainment company, to US politics across the country.

Jax@sh.itjust.works on 30 Aug 2024 15:54 collapse

Disastrous, even

xenoclast@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 15:57 next collapse

The irony of climate scientists ignoring a problem and waiting until it’s far to late to do something is honestly pretty funny…

At this point it’s wholly on you if you’re still using twitter.

You’d think smart people like science nerds would have left the Nazi bar ages ago.

davidfield@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 21:42 collapse

That first line is so spot on. Brightened up my day

robber@lemmy.ml on 30 Aug 2024 21:34 collapse

Your comment reminds me of that great tune by Pink Floyd.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDDzR2zSgsM

hector@sh.itjust.works on 30 Aug 2024 07:31 next collapse

I already accepted we’re already dead because oil & gas companies figured how to use doubt and false science to create a confusion among the general public (aided by the mass conservative Murdoch /Boloré media lol)…

It’s like tobacco companies in the 50s but we can’t afford so many years to wake the fuck up.

blind3rdeye@lemm.ee on 30 Aug 2024 09:33 next collapse

Yeah. I’ve been mourning the loss of Earth’s future for some time now. It’s very sad.

That said, we are not in a simple binary fucked vs fine situation. It’s a sliding scale. So even though things are very bad, we can always still take action to make them less bad. That is never not an option.

tux7350@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 21:31 collapse

What do you mean? If it makes you feel any better, the Earth will be fine. Has been for a couple billion years. We did this to ourselves :(

blind3rdeye@lemm.ee on 30 Aug 2024 22:36 collapse

I’m mean life on Earth, obviously. No one is saying that the planet is going to explode or disappear or anything like that. We’re talking about the climate, and life that depends on that climate.

And before you start coming at me with some “but but such and such life will still…” I’ll clarify again that there is a matter of scale here. A very large number of species that have been around for a very long time will soon be extinct (many have been lost already). So although we might still have mosquitos and jelly-fish for a long time to come, a lot of the complex life that is currently enjoying a comfortable and otherwise-sustainable life on Earth will no longer be able to do so; because of us. That’s what I’m referring to.

Yes, humans have does this to ‘ourselves’, but we are nowhere near the worst effected life in this situation. In fact, most of the ill effects on humans are just knock-on effects from other life failing. (In particular, reduced capacity to grow food is likely to be a problem for humans.)

auzy@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 15:58 collapse

Smoking companies still are with vaping (vaping companies literally sell to kids over the Internet and people literally are arguing it’s safe and healthy)

Which unfortunately shows that people don’t learn

hector@sh.itjust.works on 30 Aug 2024 19:41 collapse

Aaaaah i don’t want to be right :((

ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk on 30 Aug 2024 09:07 next collapse

Huh… “vituperative”, I like it.

TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee on 30 Aug 2024 20:59 next collapse

X needs to start getting banned by governments and official governmental channels need to be moving out.

huzzahunimpressively@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 23:04 collapse

X is such a shitty social network, or at least its really disorganized, I get porn and gore in my home page without following people who share that kind of content, That doesn’t happen even in 4chan

deuleb_biezelbob@programming.dev on 31 Aug 2024 17:29 collapse

Wow 4chan really changed huh

Disaster@sh.itjust.works on 30 Aug 2024 21:27 next collapse

Ever since Nitter died I haven’t paid any attention to anything on musks’ little fiefdom at all.

I wish the political economics guys would move… I really miss Tim Sahay/70sbachchan & Mark Blyth.

dsilverz@thelemmy.club on 08 Sep 2024 01:06 collapse

Nitter died? I’ve been using it days ago. It’s not as before the Twitter’s API restrictions, tho, because it started to using data scrapping to fetch Twitter profiles and posts.

Disaster@sh.itjust.works on 08 Sep 2024 13:43 collapse

github.com/zedeus/nitter

It appears to have ceased development. AFAIK it still works if hooked into a “valid” user account, but since I don’t have one and am increasingly less likely to consider that path, it’s a moot point.

Zink@programming.dev on 30 Aug 2024 21:36 next collapse

The size of Twitter’s user base and its ubiquitous use by celebrities and the media gave the platform an air of legitimacy that is what Musk vaporized his billions to get. He obviously didn’t value the brand or the workforce.

We need that false sense of legitimacy to keep getting chipped away in the eyes of mainstream society.

sysop@lemmy.world on 30 Aug 2024 21:57 collapse

Honestly not sure why anybody gives two fucks about celebrities anyways, some are okay but the underground scene has the realist people, because they live in the real world. Seeing through the illusions that what people think or believe in regards to some highly regarded opinions because somebody is popular due to ‘pop culture’ is a blessing. I say let Elon Musk have them. I’m not going to read it. Only twitter I read is the twitter cross-post spam of screenshots people post.

Zuckerberg telling us all what we already knew about being pressured to censor COVID, Hunter Biden, and whatever other posts goes to show left is evil, right is swinging around monkey bars like school children. Social media is a giant playground where everybody’s being swayed by their emotions and being tricked and lead around likes horses.

It’s crazy.

At least Elon’s having fun with it all.

endofline@lemmy.ca on 31 Aug 2024 15:18 collapse

The same Peter Gleick caught on forging documents to prove his point <img alt="" src="https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/842ab1bb-16f4-42dc-a97c-5c5690dcfce1.jpeg">

gallopingsnail@lemmy.sdf.org on 31 Aug 2024 15:29 collapse

I don’t even know who this guy is, but your screenshot plus a quick search says this guy added one forged document to a collection of legitimate documents released from the Heartland Institute. That was certainly not the right thing to do, but let’s at least be fully honest about it.

endofline@lemmy.ca on 31 Aug 2024 15:36 collapse

Exactly, the title is as at least misleading. They mention only one scientist with not that Cristal clear reputation. X is wild west of astroturfing but at least it’s better to be honest