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.

@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.

@randahl exactly, is there an effort for doing just that, wondering

@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?

@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)

@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

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

https://elbowsupdigital.ca/

All these initiatives are going to be listed here

https://leavex.eu/network/

There are others we need to update.

Cc @VVLD1cl @randahl @gunchleoc @bjoernsta @ElbowsUpforDigitalSovereignty

#LeaveX

@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

@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.

@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 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.

@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

@kristinHenry @_elena @randahl @MLNow @ProPublica

Electoral politics is the pursuit of and the holding onto power. Sure, people go into it for noble reasons. But the sheer amount of noise inside there cannot help but dissipate those intentions. Power and unbridled ego goes and stays where the strange attractors are. Mastodon is an antidote to that. So in my view we shouldn’t be surprised that they’re not here, nor likely to be

@urlyman @_elena @randahl @MLNow @ProPublica

I really should be going to sleep soon. But I have to expand on what you are saying here.

Yes, politics is one way to pursue and hold power.

But politics is the public solving of problems, at it's best and most powerful manifestation.

To some, it is a game. To most, it is the boring process of getting things done, sometimes in the benefit of the most.

The worst politicians, for the people, are those who want to be in office for the power.

@_elena @randahl it’s nonsense. https://mastodon.ie/@greenpartyni/115881150327768590

@randahl @_elena even more ironic are non right wing parties which are really totally against fascism. Which they communicate on fascist networks...

@gunchleoc @randahl
I don't understand how logged-in action defends against bad actors who, for example, could upload CSAM material to someone else's private server. Which is Mastodon's default behavior, to cache potentially illegal material provided by a 3rd party.

As if these bad actors, as well as the law enforcement they would snitch to, could not get access to a federated logon account?