@srfirehorseart@radlschorsch@academicchatter@edutooters I don't think this has to do with "government policy", but rather with a) inertia and b) avoiding the responsibility of content moderation. The latter, I think, is unfortunately a big one. Universities would feel exposed to legal and reputational risks for posts disseminated on "their" fedi instance.
Academics can generally use any platform they like. Attempts by management to limit this will generally lead to a revolt.
However, academics on social media tend to be those most in need of attention. I can think of dozens who joined Mastodons last year, with many of the most vocal, saying how awful twitter was.
Most have quietly gone back to X, to get the attention they crave.
@RichardShaw@srfirehorseart@radlschorsch@academicchatter@edutooters
[hesitantly raises hand] I'm an academic and the only social media platform I use mainly for professional use is LinkedIn. My others are primarily or strictly personal. That said, the Xitter meltdown led me to create this account mostly in search of community, not fame or a platform. Not finding it here, I've started using Reddit more, which is great for my topic-focused info-gathering needs. I'm online mostly to learn.
agree that federation poses somewhat of a challenge, especially for small instances. What I’ve found useful:
follow and use hashtags. That’s something I feel ex-Twitter users don’t do enough. If you’re an admin on a small server, use https://relay.fedi.buzz/ to get them pushed to you.
@cra1g@RichardShaw@srfirehorseart@radlschorsch@academicchatter@edutooters I echo that sentiment Craig. The draw to twitter has been the community for discussion, networking and learning, not really the attention. The problem is that the few attention seekers out there end up drawing in the crowd, so it sucks in with it many others in the field too, creating the network effect that any other platform struggles to overcome.
I think the real problem with academia is that it trains people to think like very poor middle managers, who rather than solve problems pursue badly corrupted metrics in order to advance their careers.
@RichardShaw@srfirehorseart@radlschorsch@academicchatter@edutooters 100% agree. We are absolutely at that place where career advancement is more important to most academics than building a robust, ethics based, sustainable academic environment that nourishes students and staff. i.e. we are so fucked. But, don't feel like I am picking on academia, it is a society wide effect.
@Oozenet@RichardShaw@srfirehorseart@radlschorsch@academicchatter@edutooters I must say that saddens me. Many were put off by the 'complexity' here. Perhaps that was fair, but also unfortunate, as this place has improved vastly in terms of features and UI, but by the time this has happened, most have left and won't give a second look. #Mastodon was almost too ready but not ready enough last year!
@srfirehorseart@radlschorsch@academicchatter@edutooters I don't think it's a policy thing - not aware of anything stopping e.g. a Biology department getting a Mastodon account - and more that the staff/resources around comms/social media can be limited, so they'll tend to focus on max. reach to target audiences (students/partners/funders), which means "trendy" and high traffic options like Twitter, Instagram, TikTok. Not a lot of time to invest in nurturing a Mastodon.