ethanz @ethanz@octodon.social
Center for Civic Media, MIT Media Lab, Global Voices, Media Cloud, Berkman Klein Center. Author of "Rewire". #MakeAmericaKindAgain
I had the opportunity to finally meet @ethanz last night, interviewing him for FLOSS Weekly #678.
https://twit.tv/shows/floss-weekly/episodes/678?autostart=false
We covered lots of ground on federation, the diversity of microblogging systems, the Fediverse and Mastodon, why Twitter is so hard to replace and more. I had a great time, albeit finding we were only starting discussions rather than getting to their meat, and you may enjoy it too!
It's exciting to see tons of people joining Mastodon - I am still not especially active here, but am working on a new workflow that lets me crosspost between Twitter and Mastodon. That, combined with the next generation of gobo.social (not currently working) might let me finally get off Twitter.
I spent some time yesterday trying to understand the pattern of Mastodon's growth. Here's what I wrote about what I learned: https://medium.com/@EthanZ/mastodon-is-big-in-japan-the-reason-why-is-uncomfortable-684c036498e5
Anyone have a list of the largest Mastodon nodes? Am trying to understand what's going on in the 69% of Mastodon that's Japanese-based. I know about pawoo.net and mstdn.jp - looking for other large nodes in the US, Europe, Japan...
Hearing @sandro predict that Mastodon will be at 20m users in June. Currently doubling its userbase weekly.
Sandro is giving a live Mastodon demo at #CenterforCivicMedia at #MITMediaLab... and this toot is part of the demo...
Satan's own sinus infection led to #ProjectGrounded, in which I try to do everything I'm supposed to do without getting on a plane. So far, a board meeting in Washington, a massive meeting in Boston and a speech in Poland given by Skype. And now, home via Amtrak to western MA. Slowing down isn't such a bad thing.
Folks in academia in particular - please #standwithCEU, a Hungarian/American university in danger of being shut down by Hungary's right-wing government: https://www.ceu.edu/category/istandwithceu
PARI, an extraordinary volunteer project to document indigenous Indian culture - "the Smithsonian from below" http://www.livemint.com/Sundayapp/Au88BIaZx5tQxksJhAQ6xK/When-songs-from-rural-grind-mills-make-it-online.html
Ten years ago, platforms bragged that they were hosted in countries with minimal content laws. Fascinated to see a server advertise that they are hosted in a country with strong laws against hate speech. I guess that means we need to trust instance operators to have the resources to handle reports of illegal material, protect users from overreach, and keep their instance going. That's a big ask.
Center for Civic Media, MIT Media Lab, Global Voices, Media Cloud, Berkman Klein Center. Author of "Rewire". #MakeAmericaKindAgain
