Thinking about what Twitter enables as an activist relay system, as an amplifier. What comes to mind:
1. Helen Prejean: her reach and her understanding of it are extraordinary.
2. Black Twitter: nothing like it yet here, and this network at scale also boosts global Indigenous activism.
3. Harry's Last Stand and other older Twitter users: for all its Silicon Valley bro-haha, Twitter has offered activist seniors a platform
4. Refugee voices, included incarcerated voices on Manus/Nauru.
So I'm thinking about this as a feminist in a time of boycotts.
I'm thinking about these voices of protest who are enabled to be incredibly effective because of scale and reach, on the exact same platform that enables all the harm it enables.
I want to know how we work together across platforms as we do across national borders to draw strength from each other in dealing with what we each have to deal with.
Mastodon is unequivocally a better place for me. But I look at what is still happening every day on Twitter that I don't want to silence.
Marginal and confined voices of protest relayed round the world.
It's complicated.
@Laurelai Yes, yes I feel that. I hate that. And I should have said "suffering" not just harm because I agree that's the level.
Profit is the thing that sticks with me too. That we are the business model.
I read your longer post. Well said.
We must keep trying to see over the mountainous nature of platform capitalism to imagine alternatives that are better. #thinking
@katebowles I've been thinking about this from a technical perspective. It seems to me that Twitter's only advantages are the existing user base, and they control the account/identity system so it's hard to transfer off automatically.
@katebowles The identity thing is going to be a problem for any closed platform, and even if Twitter cleans up their act (not that I think they will to any meaningful degree)
@katebowles I just cant keep participating in a site that profits from my suffering