@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
@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 Here is the first handmade cartoon depicting the stalemate between politicians and journalists.
@_elena @randahl Please simply compare the number of active users between X and Mastodon. Mastodon leads a rather obscure existence in the social media world. Even Bluesky is a "dwarf" compared to X. Politicians and journalists also rely on perceived reach based on user numbers (fake accounts, multiple accounts by one person are not so easy to verify). Could this also be an explanation?
@_elena @randahl This is why I think we need to adopt the "snowball" approach. We need to keep presuring politicians and journalists on why they are still on X. And we need to be prepared to being ignored a lot of the time. But occasionally we will succeed. In the Netherlands, for example, @volkskrant no longer posts on X and are working to #LoseTheXLink (still there but defunct). Every small success adds up, until we might one day reach a tipping point. Keep pushing.
@greenpartyni THANK YOU for being here! Someone mentioned you at FOSDEM last weekend. I wish ALL political parties would follow your example, especially here in Europe (but honestly, everywhere) 🙌
@randahl
@greenpartyni thank you!!! 💚 @randahl
@_elena @randahl This doesn't excuse the lack of posting elsewhere. They could just copy-paste their posts to Fedi or Bluesky. There are lots of journalists on bluesky. And a few here on fedi.
They could prepare to dump x, by putting in a tiny bit of effort on any other platform. Or rather a tiny bit of their interns' efforts.
@kristinHenry @randahl hey I absolutely abhor all Big Tech platforms and deleted all my accounts, so I agree with you.
We should also not underestimate how tech illiterate many politicians and journalists may be...
@_elena @randahl I get a lot of actually useful-to-me news right here from @MLNow. They're a fantastic local news team that has embraced distributed social.
@ProPublica is also here. But not as active.
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.
@_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.
@randahl my recollection was AOC, when approached, was not only a "no", she was a "hell no."
@randahl there was some talk of it on the discord server. I honestly don't recall. Perhaps some of the Mastodon employees would know.
@stinerman I looked through the Discord history and it just seems like Bluesky was already taking off at the time and AOC/her team just said no to other social media platforms, including Threads.
Doesn't seem to be specific to fediverse/Mastodon, unless I missed something.
