Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

So by all means, express your concerns for how using Twitter is supporting a fascist and all his little fascist minions. Exhort people to stop using Twitter because using Twitter helps a fascist. Beg people to find alternatives to the sinking ship that Twitter is, because the communities that grew on it are much too precious to allow to go down with the ship, and need to be rewoven somewhere else.

But don't *attack* the people you want to pry away from Twitter. Don't belittle them, even in the abstract, even when you don't think they're present. If you think they are on your side, if you want them to join your side: treat them like you're on their side. Treat them with respect. Treat them with sympathy. That doesn't mean you have to give up your arguments. It just means you have to not be a sphincter.

So let's be clear: calling people fascists for still using Twitter at this point – and I do understand where you're coming from – in the course of exhorting them to join the Fediverse is pretty much the definition of being verbally abusive. You're using name calling to attempt to berate someone into doing what you want.

The thing that makes it clear that it's just being verbally abusive is that it's *specious* name calling. You very clearly do not actually believe that a person is a fascist because they're still using Twitter at this point. If you actually believed that, you wouldn't want them here.

That's what reveals that you're just saying insulting things that are meant to hurt people's feelings, not actually making an actual accusation that you actually believe.

Don't do that.

It doesn't work, for one thing.

Also, it's a real shitty way to treat your fellow human beings. More specifically, that really shitty way of treating other people has a name. It's called bullying.

Shooting off your mouth on Mastodon about how anyone still using Twitter is a terrible human being is not going to convince any Twitter user to use Mastodon.

At best, they are on Twitter, and will not see it.

At worst, they will be checking out Mastodon, and WILL see it. And they're not going to be convinced that Mastodon is a wonderful place where they'll fit in and be welcomed with open arms: their first impression, quite possibly before even signing up for an account, will be that they are already hated here.

If you're castigating Twitter users in the course of arguing that anyone who applies for an account on your instance should be vetted to make sure they're not one of those awful Twitter users, well, I think you're an asshole, but at least that's logically coherent.

Ranting that anybody still using Twitter is a fascist but also still exhorting them to join the Fediverse is obviously self-contradictory, unless you like fascists.

David Cronenberg's "Turbo Teen"

“#Science is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.”

- Jules Verne #books

We are going into our 5th winter of the #COVID pandemic (4th with any kind of data), if you can believe it.

The patterns of our collective infection of each other are very, very predictable. Our highest waves respond directly to social behaviors we choose, like return to schools with no infection controls, & holiday travel. The only thing that has successfully reduced the waves of infection have been public health measures we take as a collective, like masking, ventilation & physical distancing

Fox News is many things, but it seems to me that, above all, it's grievance reception for a particular kind of insecure adult over 50 who is embarrassingly mourning the loss of a future that openly doesn't want them and failing in an attempt to pretend they're not bothered by it.

"I’ve lived with armed guards outside my home and have had to upend my family, go into hiding for months and repeatedly move."

-- Yoel Roth, former head of Trust and Safety at Twitter.

This is an incredibly powerful essay about what happens when the most powerful and visible people on the internet go after you.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/18/opinion/trump-elon-musk-twitter.html

Oh Twitter. I guess let's do this again:

Are you looking for a Mastodon server with those tasty animemes? Perhaps you've gone searching but found some...unsavory stuff... :INTSLAquapanic:

We created https://urusai.social as a safe, cozy, English-first home for happy weebs and all of our varied interests :remspin:

URUSAI! Social: All the otaku content. None of the toxicity.

Come join us in our mission to be wholesome :KaitoCheer:

Transferring servers is a simple 2-step process and all your stuff comes with you, even your followers! :HoloParty:

#anime #manga #mastodon #instance #server #otaku #nerds #geek

Boosts appreciated! #BoostMe

This is what happens when you elect the right people.