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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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 “engagement farming” is an odd term. It seems to me that many journalists are in broadcast mode, and don’t have time for conversation. My view is that Mastodon is fine for conversations (depending on your cultivation of follows) but not so great for broadcasting. I’m OK with that.
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R relay@relay.mycrowd.ca shared this topic
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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 modern opinion-minded journalists should just include some form of sharing on the Fediverse. Specifically for the controversial stuff normally blocked by mainstream media/socials
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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 guess to talk about it with other folks. But then again how often do I do that with articles I read. it just feels like personal isolated self development. Where do you go from there when you read an article?
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@gabbywheels @Haste I believe this is the right take.
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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
"modern news orgs use social media in purely extractive ways"And post junk instead of doing journalism.
Murdoch has replaced some titles with AI Slop.
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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 Pfff, reporters can go fuck themselves ..
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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 Translation: They want an algorithmic platform that will amplify their broadcast. Despite the lip service most reporters don't actually want to engage, they want to put a story out and broadcast it. That's why Mastodon doesn't work for so many of them.
Also they usually want some sort of measurable metric so that they can justify their existence to their boss. 10k likes on a bot laden network still looks good to people who don't get it. -
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.
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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 it’s so much easier for them to negotiate a deal with a central owner of non-federated social media to artificially force their posts into your view.
That doesn’t work here if there is an instance devoted to fire and forget with no community participation I’d personally block it at the instance level.
It’s amazing to me that corporations have positions for social media posters but not necessarily participatory users. It’s all about an initial hook, click and view counts.
I don’t care who sees my posts here some are just into the void. I can be as weird as I want to be. Also I have no relatives that call when I post ambiguous song lyrics worried about my mental health.
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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
The only factor that should guide journalists (or anyone, really) about where to post and engage is whether their intended audience is there. Period.I'd bet that Democracy Now! doesn't post to Truth Social. When JD Couchfucker established an account on Bluesky, he became one of the most blocked accounts.
Are your peeps there? If not, don't waste your time.
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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 weird, its almost as though the fediverse is strongly averse to monetization. I would expect this behavior if monetization had enshittified the internet, but that couldn't possible be, right? No. It has to be the fediverse that is wrong.
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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.
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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 in my experience: Basically after trying to interact with various journalists on Twitter, you'd know which ones were there to actually participate in a public discussions, which ones would only reply to their "mutuals" while scoffing at everyone else, and which ones only posted to self-promote and didnt engage at all. @Haste
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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.
-
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?
good social media is RSS with boosts and replies. I primarily want to follow lots of people who will then surface the best articles so I don't have to subscribe to everyone's RSS feed. and see some discussion.
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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
Some are here, one of my faves @rachelgilmore.substack.com is here at least as automated bridge.
I find people very engaged here with politics. It’s about finding people you genuinely resonate with their content here which means you also have to be genuine. And a lot of mainstream journalists are so busy playing an access, capitalist, and propaganda game, that what they offer is of no interest to most Mastodonians who seem to want to build a post-capitalism world. -
@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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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
Spot on. Most journalists don't want to participate, they want attention and reach. Mastodon is antithetical to their needs, which is what they stay on X.
As someone who worked in a newsroom for 14 years I'll say this: good, let them stay on X. A shame, but hey.
