It’s been a weird couple days; I keep running into this talking point that “journalists won’t use Mastodon unless we incentivize engagement farming”.
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And I mean, is that really want you want? Or is it just what you’re used to?
I think if we’re honest with ourselves, the “service” most reporters provide on social media is entirely self-serving. A one-way firehose of signal boosting and self promotion.
“Look at me! I wrote this story. Click on it!”
And then you ask them a question, or have a correction, and nobody reads it, because Wired doesn’t care about building a community, just reaching a consumer. It’s fire and forget.We already have a tool for that, it’s RSS. What value does reposting a link here provide?
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It’s been a weird couple days; I keep running into this talking point that “journalists won’t use Mastodon unless we incentivize engagement farming”.
Meanwhile I’m having a *great* experience here, because I use it to— I dunno— actually talk to people and form relationships?
I reject the premise that mastodon isn’t useful for reporters. I think it’s more accurate that modern news orgs use social media in purely extractive ways.
You might get more reporters that way, but you won’t like them.
@Haste this is neither an AD platform nor a platform for one way communication to build an audience which is just consuming.
Hence it's uninteresting for 90% of journalist making a living in corporate media.Let's keep it that way.
Everybody else who wants real connection and two way conversation is welcome, though.
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@Haste I really like this. Thank you writing this. I mean it is useful to be able to reach the people who care about your work but we should form real relationships with people who care.
@OliviaVespera thanks, fam. Sometimes I feel like the phrase “personal brand” has just absolutely melted our minds.
Surely the point of social media is to communicate with people? And surely the point of reporting is to do the same.
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@Haste this is neither an AD platform nor a platform for one way communication to build an audience which is just consuming.
Hence it's uninteresting for 90% of journalist making a living in corporate media.Let's keep it that way.
Everybody else who wants real connection and two way conversation is welcome, though.
@rhold I will say I’ve noticed an uptick in… not ads, exactly, but buttoned up branded “content” in the popular feed on .social.
I’m curious how long the “no brands” vibe will last.
Some days it’s like… Proton product announcement followed by Tuta product announcement followed by Open Office product announcement. It’s not overwhelming yet but it rhymes with social media as I’ve experienced it elsewhere. Makes me a little nervous.
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I think if we’re honest with ourselves, the “service” most reporters provide on social media is entirely self-serving. A one-way firehose of signal boosting and self promotion.
“Look at me! I wrote this story. Click on it!”
And then you ask them a question, or have a correction, and nobody reads it, because Wired doesn’t care about building a community, just reaching a consumer. It’s fire and forget.We already have a tool for that, it’s RSS. What value does reposting a link here provide?
@Haste I wasn't on Twitter before its downfall, but from what I've heard I got the impression that microblogging was a two-way street with journalists, scientists and 'common' folk.
It probably was more like you are suggesting though. But it does make me wonder if early Twitter really was less self-serving in a way.
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@Haste I wasn't on Twitter before its downfall, but from what I've heard I got the impression that microblogging was a two-way street with journalists, scientists and 'common' folk.
It probably was more like you are suggesting though. But it does make me wonder if early Twitter really was less self-serving in a way.
@odd I’m not sure. I wasn’t on Twitter in the early days. By the time I got there it already sucked. lol
I did get to experience invite-only Bluesky, but I can’t really comment on it from a reporting standpoint because I only used it to shitpost. Which was very community oriented, but totally devoid of professional value.
Mastodon really is the only place I’ve had any interest in my work and I just assume that’s cause I’m pals with folks that live in Seattle here.
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@odd I’m not sure. I wasn’t on Twitter in the early days. By the time I got there it already sucked. lol
I did get to experience invite-only Bluesky, but I can’t really comment on it from a reporting standpoint because I only used it to shitpost. Which was very community oriented, but totally devoid of professional value.
Mastodon really is the only place I’ve had any interest in my work and I just assume that’s cause I’m pals with folks that live in Seattle here.
@Haste @odd when twitter was smaller, two way conversation was indeed more common, there was
more a vibe of experimentation and play- and the rules were a bit different than how it is now:no pictures, no replies, no retweets, no search, and history only could go back about 100 posts.
as soon as retweets, replies and search got added, the vibe got less fun because retweets let dumb throwaway remarks go “viral”, blind replies turned virality into pile ons, and search enabled kiwifarms style analysis of targets
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It’s been a weird couple days; I keep running into this talking point that “journalists won’t use Mastodon unless we incentivize engagement farming”.
Meanwhile I’m having a *great* experience here, because I use it to— I dunno— actually talk to people and form relationships?
I reject the premise that mastodon isn’t useful for reporters. I think it’s more accurate that modern news orgs use social media in purely extractive ways.
You might get more reporters that way, but you won’t like them.
@Haste Twitter is so full of bots. Surely a journalist would prefer actual humans interacting with their material? I’ve heard a lot of journalists say they might not get the number of likes they are accustomed to, but they receive more quality engagement on Mastodon. Unless they are only on social media to get numbers that will impress their bosses?
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@Haste @odd when twitter was smaller, two way conversation was indeed more common, there was
more a vibe of experimentation and play- and the rules were a bit different than how it is now:no pictures, no replies, no retweets, no search, and history only could go back about 100 posts.
as soon as retweets, replies and search got added, the vibe got less fun because retweets let dumb throwaway remarks go “viral”, blind replies turned virality into pile ons, and search enabled kiwifarms style analysis of targets
@Haste @odd there’s a nuance there. Mentions came before replies; and there’s the subtle difference that a mention didn’t create a thread. there was no reply threads for a long time so “replies” were implied by time. so if someone was experiencing a pile on the only way to know is to go to the “mentions” tab on their profile.
(a thing that used to be possible) -
@Haste @odd when twitter was smaller, two way conversation was indeed more common, there was
more a vibe of experimentation and play- and the rules were a bit different than how it is now:no pictures, no replies, no retweets, no search, and history only could go back about 100 posts.
as soon as retweets, replies and search got added, the vibe got less fun because retweets let dumb throwaway remarks go “viral”, blind replies turned virality into pile ons, and search enabled kiwifarms style analysis of targets
@bri7 @odd I bet the internet itself is also kind of different than back then. I don’t have a base for comparison with twitter but I encountered this recently going back to play WoW.
It’s like.. the sewage we’ve all been wading in has made people more cautious and cynical. So it’s kind of just harder to talk to strangers than it used to be online?
At least, it’s hard to imagine using the internet in some of the ways that used to feel normal.
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@rhold I will say I’ve noticed an uptick in… not ads, exactly, but buttoned up branded “content” in the popular feed on .social.
I’m curious how long the “no brands” vibe will last.
Some days it’s like… Proton product announcement followed by Tuta product announcement followed by Open Office product announcement. It’s not overwhelming yet but it rhymes with social media as I’ve experienced it elsewhere. Makes me a little nervous.
@Haste we will see.
I have nothing against artits, local and comminity based or open sources biz tooting their horn here. But aggressive captilastic consumerism produchts probably won't find buisness here. But true: as long as we are niche it's easy to remain pure.
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@Haste we will see.
I have nothing against artits, local and comminity based or open sources biz tooting their horn here. But aggressive captilastic consumerism produchts probably won't find buisness here. But true: as long as we are niche it's easy to remain pure.
@rhold oh I hadn’t even thought to include artists in that observation. I’d be delighted to have a feed full of artists promoting their stuff. 🤩
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It’s been a weird couple days; I keep running into this talking point that “journalists won’t use Mastodon unless we incentivize engagement farming”.
Meanwhile I’m having a *great* experience here, because I use it to— I dunno— actually talk to people and form relationships?
I reject the premise that mastodon isn’t useful for reporters. I think it’s more accurate that modern news orgs use social media in purely extractive ways.
You might get more reporters that way, but you won’t like them.
@Haste How are you defining journalists? For me a journalist is someone like @briankrebs Not many around anymore, I gave up on NPR over a decade ago because quality and depth were gone, despite them still retaining some real journalists, they weren't allowed to work as such. I suspect Brian has much deeper understanding and insights into the issue than myself with his background and expertise.
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I think if we’re honest with ourselves, the “service” most reporters provide on social media is entirely self-serving. A one-way firehose of signal boosting and self promotion.
“Look at me! I wrote this story. Click on it!”
And then you ask them a question, or have a correction, and nobody reads it, because Wired doesn’t care about building a community, just reaching a consumer. It’s fire and forget.We already have a tool for that, it’s RSS. What value does reposting a link here provide?
@Haste I'm imagining a whole lot of reasons why you could expect better turnaround from social media posts, even if you treat it just like a feed and never reply to anything. Primarily engagement--like my blog probably won't get any attention not only because it sucks but also because there's no way to engage with it. Until I fix that I'm probably wasting time.
I can add comments to my site but that's going to be a new service they have to join or I'm enabling social media commentary.
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It’s been a weird couple days; I keep running into this talking point that “journalists won’t use Mastodon unless we incentivize engagement farming”.
Meanwhile I’m having a *great* experience here, because I use it to— I dunno— actually talk to people and form relationships?
I reject the premise that mastodon isn’t useful for reporters. I think it’s more accurate that modern news orgs use social media in purely extractive ways.
You might get more reporters that way, but you won’t like them.
@Haste good point
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It’s been a weird couple days; I keep running into this talking point that “journalists won’t use Mastodon unless we incentivize engagement farming”.
Meanwhile I’m having a *great* experience here, because I use it to— I dunno— actually talk to people and form relationships?
I reject the premise that mastodon isn’t useful for reporters. I think it’s more accurate that modern news orgs use social media in purely extractive ways.
You might get more reporters that way, but you won’t like them.
@Haste I think it's a question of aligned incentives. A lot of journalism has to drive eyeballs to advertisers to stay in business. And they use the same ad networks with the same engagement metrics as corporate social media, which also has to drive eyeballs to advertisements through their algorithms. So the strategy that boosts engagement one place will boost it everywhere. Then these folks try to play that same game here on Mastodon...and it doesn't work.
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It’s been a weird couple days; I keep running into this talking point that “journalists won’t use Mastodon unless we incentivize engagement farming”.
Meanwhile I’m having a *great* experience here, because I use it to— I dunno— actually talk to people and form relationships?
I reject the premise that mastodon isn’t useful for reporters. I think it’s more accurate that modern news orgs use social media in purely extractive ways.
You might get more reporters that way, but you won’t like them.
@Haste Fuck all of that engagement bullshit. Those parasites should stay hell away from here. I don’t miss them. I don’t want them. Anything even remotely like that shit that was on commercial social media I block with extreme prejudice.
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I think if we’re honest with ourselves, the “service” most reporters provide on social media is entirely self-serving. A one-way firehose of signal boosting and self promotion.
“Look at me! I wrote this story. Click on it!”
And then you ask them a question, or have a correction, and nobody reads it, because Wired doesn’t care about building a community, just reaching a consumer. It’s fire and forget.We already have a tool for that, it’s RSS. What value does reposting a link here provide?
@Haste Precisely why I eschew accounts with many followers but few followed. If I want news, I will read it elsewhere. Exchange of ideas not lectures is what I am after.
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It’s been a weird couple days; I keep running into this talking point that “journalists won’t use Mastodon unless we incentivize engagement farming”.
Meanwhile I’m having a *great* experience here, because I use it to— I dunno— actually talk to people and form relationships?
I reject the premise that mastodon isn’t useful for reporters. I think it’s more accurate that modern news orgs use social media in purely extractive ways.
You might get more reporters that way, but you won’t like them.
@Haste Dunno, I kinda feel like it is a chicken/egg issue here. The nice thing about Twitter was that everyone was there. Once it fell people moved, but no a lot moved here.
So journalists (well everyone) need to post in more places and likely want to optimize for eyes seeing their stuff. Maybe it's just me, but I just don't see as much engagement here as I do on other platforms?
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@odd I’m not sure. I wasn’t on Twitter in the early days. By the time I got there it already sucked. lol
I did get to experience invite-only Bluesky, but I can’t really comment on it from a reporting standpoint because I only used it to shitpost. Which was very community oriented, but totally devoid of professional value.
Mastodon really is the only place I’ve had any interest in my work and I just assume that’s cause I’m pals with folks that live in Seattle here.
