Jennifer Harrison @GeneticJen@mastodon.social

"Silent Sam," a statue on the UNC campus, one of the Lost Cause memorials funded by the United Daughters of the Confederacy as part of their campaign to whitewash the history of the Civil War, has been toppled by protestors.

It is a monument to racism. Julian Carr's monstrous 1913 dedication speech celebrated a KKK terror campaign and gleefully retold an anecdote about whipping a slave.

Good for those protestors. The university should have done it long ago.

Image: @ssiddiqui83 on Twitter

Some twitter v. Mastodon tips for all of the lovely new tooters:

When you like a tweet on twitter, a swarm of AIs spin into action, analysing every aspect of the tweet and trying so desperately to find the matching tweet to show you next that will keep you scrolling, lest their masters decommission them in favor of a new version.

When you fave a toot on Mastodon, there aren't any AIs; you just made another human being across the world feel nice.

Making a list of instances run by women. If that's you, @ me with it. So far I know:

🌟 http://kitty.town
🌟 http://occult.camp
🌟 http://elekk.xyz
🌟 http://mastodon.starrevolution.org
🌟 http://glitch.social
🌟 http://octodon.social

Did you know that you don't need to use link shorteners (bit.ly, etc.) on Mastodon? All links, no matter how long, only count for 23 characters against your 500 limit!

(And since link shorteners are bad for user experience and break the web, there's almost no good reason to use 'em! 😄)

🕰️ DAY 2 OF MASTODON🕰️

🚫no talk of 2016 election
🚫no "NICE TRY, IVAN-BOT!"
🚫no 12 follower Nazi trolls
🚫no PROMOTED TOOTs
🚫no DSA slapfights
🚫no rolling hellthread drama
🚫no whims of The Algorithm

✅all your banned faves!
✅pleasant *b'bloop* sound!
✅toot puns!
✅i say again: TOOT PUNS!
✅gentle sandalwood aroma!
✅your old jokes? new again!
✅you look thinner here!
✅have you been working out?

Just FYI:

https://twitter.com/aral/status/1030524140258844673

https://www.facebook.com/aralbalkan/posts/10156287425206542

There was a time when I felt using those platforms against the grain was a good strategy for reaching people (see https://2018.ar.al/notes/spyware-vs-spyware/) but times have changed.

We now have beautiful free/open, federated/decentralised, and interoperable alternatives like Mastodon with more on the way. I now feel my energies are best used in experiencing them as fully as possible and contributing to making them better.