Notices by Dave ⚡️ (dave@social.lightbeamapps.com)

"During Covid" is such a pernicious phrase. It implies it's no longer a problem.

Trump wants TikTok sold, assumedly to a US owner, to remove the ban.

Imagine this in reverse. Imagine China demanding Instagram being sold to a Chinese owner.

This current era is cooked, to put it mildly. I’m glad for Federated social media for enabling folks to plot their own course online, to some degree.

I see the fear and dread from folks in all of my social feeds. Fedi, BS and even corporate social.

My suggestion is this: Make something.

If you can’t make something - fix something.

If you can’t fix something - rest.

Be kind to yourself. If you have “extra” in the tank, help someone else.

It’s the only way to outlast this rise of bullshit that’s going on.

@dansup it would be awesome if the algorithm that is used, has user transparency to a degree of letting users control and share their own configs for that algorithm.

Most will stay in the defaults, but this might let different communities find their own defaults. It would also provide a meaningful connection for users to that oversight committee in a way that doesn’t exist in big social.

(Thinking out loud as much as anything here!)

@Gargron now would be the perfect time for Mastodon to prioritise features that marginalised communities have been asking for, around better privacy controls, retooting, etc.

I would love to see loud, affirmative commitment and action on these things from the Mastodon team

@dansup

Can PixelFed + Loops consider mechanisms that folks from marginalised communities typically need, and prioritise those to help provide good landing places for those people exiting Meta?

Specifically I’m thinking:
* Granular posting privacy rules
* Retweeting style quote boosting or whatever analogy works best in your services
* Strong privacy/blocking tools for individuals
* Strong privacy/blocking tools for admins
* Post migration/redirect for account migrations

@skinnylatte yup. And don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t judge anyone negatively who wants to try and get that FU money or to get notches on their CV they just can’t get where they are - if it’s Silicon Valley or wherever that’s the ticket for the individual then good for them, genuinely.

But what it was, doesn’t seem like what it is, broadly, now. That ossification and homogenisation is incredibly off-putting.

This vibe also extends to the output of tech as a whole now too tbh

@skinnylatte

I work in tech, in NZ for an Australian company. There are incredibly few opportunities a job could give me in Silicon Valley, that would feel like any sort of upgrade for me.

Maybe 10 years ago, I might’ve jumped at the chance to work for Apple. These days - no way !

@Infoseepage first up, this is a poor way to communicate with someone you don’t know.

Second, get fucked mate 😂

@Infoseepage thank you, I guess?

Trying out a new mask #YallStillMasking

@MayInToronto @skinnylatte ha, that’s so Mastodon an approach 😅

@MayInToronto @skinnylatte are people doing this via lists or something ?

This article from CNN, from 2020 is mind-blowing given where things are at now

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/16/health/pandemic-covid-19-denial-mental-health-wellness/index.html

#COVIDIsNotOver #COVID19

I hate where the US election looks like it is going and the inevitable cost on humanity that it is likely to have.

One thing is quite clear to me though.

The rest of the world having so much of our digital lives routed through and dominated by the USA, is a huge problem and risk to so many things. For a lot of our digital and online lives, the USA is a single point of failure.

I’m on one of the local long COVID groups on FB messenger. It’s both disheartening and and heartening how many folks are there. Mutual support.

Pretty routine, is a sense of abandonment by people in our lives who haven’t got the condition.

That glossing-over and ignorance, that most people do, feels actively harmful at times.

Far too many shared experiences of folks who should have stepped up, supported, (manaaki?) people in their lives and just… didn’t.

Folks who won’t test, mask, vaccinate or protect their own health when they can, who won’t do it for their loved ones.

Folks who won’t spend the barest bit of emotional labour to reach out and support.

It’s an eye opener, and still slaps me in the face each time I see it play out.

I’m very grateful for my family, and those who have stepped up in my life.

Thinking about climate change, and story telling. I remember that in the tv series FireFly, they refer to “earth that was”.

The thing about being in my 40s, is that I remember bits of “earth that was”. I know things have changed in my lifetime. I also remember my dad telling me about the changes he’d seen from the 60s-90s when I was a kid.

We will tell stories of the older days, and it’s going to sound unreal to the generations that don’t know otherwise.

“Earth that was” is a distant planet

Relatedly: that makes me think, well what stories could we tell to guide this? HopePunk rather than dystopia?

Maybe.

Whatever it is, it probably shouldn’t be utopian. It should show the work ahead, the work that will be necessary.

The changes are going to happen quicker than we’d like and their fixes are going to take longer than any generation has.

I want to see stories of how this work can be done, I think.

Also relatedly. This is probably why capitalism, and colonialism undermines inter-generational living, and links and communication between the generations. Disconnect each new generation from that knowledge base.

There’s probably a power to be had in stories here. Communication into the future.