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Climate scientists flee Twitter [to Mastodon] as hostility surges

EDIT: I didn’t notice in the original post, the article is from 2023

cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/19707239

Researchers have documented an explosion of hate and misinformation on Twitter since the Tesla billionaire took over in October 2022 – and now experts say communicating about climate science on the social network on which many of them rely is getting harder.

Policies aimed at curbing the deadly effects of climate change are accelerating, prompting a rise in what experts identify as organised resistance by opponents of climate reform.

Peter Gleick, a climate and water specialist with nearly 99,000 followers, announced on May 21 he would no longer post on the platform because it was amplifying racism and sexism.

While he is accustomed to “offensive, personal, ad hominem attacks, up to and including direct physical threats”, he told AFP, “in the past few months, since the takeover and changes at Twitter, the amount, vituperativeness, and intensity of abuse has skyrocketed”.

ohellidk ,

I have no clue why all these normal, non-racist non-political people still use twitter. It was bought for the obvious purpose of providing a safe space for conservatives, racists, incels, and other outcasts to society. Mastodon is a perfect replacement for it, and you can pick an instance that suits you. It isn’t owned by a mentally unstable billionaire!

_sideffect ,

Very true, but at the same time I feel that it’s a place where I won’t get censored just because google randomly thought my comment was offensive

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

People get censored on Twitter all the time.

demesisx , (edited )
@demesisx@infosec.pub avatar

I agree with this assessment for the most part but one side of me plays devil’s advocate on this:

I sort of came to realize in the end that it was possibly purchased to push all leftists off the platform, allowing Musk to compete with Google and Facebook in heavily manipulating and censoring discourse in American society (and let’s be clear, they did. Just because it was an attempt to help “the good guys in the DNC” by Google and Facebook doesn’t make it not an open and shut case of treasonous manipulation of discourse.

As an absolutely prolific Twitter user pre-2016, I was very quick to leave….but at the same time, I eventually came to the sad conclusion that Xitter (pronounced Shitter) actually does need leftist voices as long as it exists. IMO, it (and Google and Facebook) should be dissolved, open sourced, decentralized, and socialized for the crime of treason/undermining democracy.

We (people of the fediverse with a strong sense of integrity) basically fled to our own decentralized, open source platform where we have 1 millionth of the reach with our voices. Being around such a cesspool where astroturfers working for Progressive think tanks and their conservative buddies would gaslight me about the popularity of things like Single Payer or student loan reform…which was not great for my well-being…But let’s not pretend that leftists that remain on the platform are bad people for doing so. An echo chamber has a way of brainwashing people. So, conservatism would be even stronger had more of our brethren not stayed.

Just a small counterpoint. I strongly dislike conservatism and the conservative ethos of “fuck you, got mine”…but perhaps they were playing 4D chess with us a bit.

vzq ,

What the fuck are you talking about man?

demesisx , (edited )
@demesisx@infosec.pub avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    vzq , (edited )

    Look at that! We both win!

    Traister101 ,

    Everyone from the lemmy.blahaj.zone instance that I’ve interacted with or seen have been trolls. Those guys are super weirdos idk what their deal is. It’s baffling seeing what they claim to stand for

    harrys_balzac ,

    I thought they were supposed to be a pro-trans, inclusive community but I’m thinking it’s mostly just astro-terfing trolls. Kinda like ml or lemmygrad or beehaw aren’t really leftists, just pro-authoritarian incoherent apologist edgelords.

    It’s like they’re not even trying to interact with good faith.

    Traister101 ,

    I wouldn’t be shocked if it was astro-terfing

    lolrightythen ,

    Made sense to me

    beefbot ,

    Idk either. But it’s really easy to stay where you’re used to, rather than do the work to set something new up

    UnderpantsWeevil ,
    @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

    Twitter hasn’t dropped below the critical mass of users necessary for the system to become useless. It’s still a major artery of media and social commerce, just one that’s been littered with landmines. Yes, its far more dangerous and difficult to navigate now, but its still better than posting into the uninhabited wilderness that is Bluesky or the exact same basket of shitty engagement posts that is Threads.

    tabular ,
    @tabular@lemmy.world avatar

    Is it actually better than nothing though?

    Either these are tolerant folks or someone we might be better off if they stayed on 4twitter.

    unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov ,

    Counterpoint: Twitter will continue to maintain a critical mass of users until enough people move somewhere else to make it irrelevant. Continuing to use it only serves to further credentialize the platform, making it even less likely that users will find a new home someplace else.

    UnderpantsWeevil ,
    @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

    Continuing to use it only serves to further credentialize the platform

    The vast majority of users don’t care whether the platform is credentialized or not.

    unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov ,

    Respectfully, you were the one who pointed out the impact of the Network Effect.

    The adoption of a product by an additional user can be broken into two effects: an increase in the value to all other users (total effect) and also the enhancement of other non-users’ motivation for using the product (marginal effect).

    Thus, users don’t need to understand the credentials of the platform if the network effect is strong enough, but as users leave the network, the value (credentials) of the platform as a whole decreases.

    Another way to think about it is that the amount Twitter “matters” is directly related to how much we collectively agree it matters. While not directly transferable, I’d suggest that Keynes’ Animal Spirits concept can help us to understand why this might be the case - prevailing attitudes towards a platform can have a profound impact on their value.

    nasi_goreng ,
    @nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip avatar

    It’s still usable if you’re not on English side of Twitter.

    For example, recent Indonesian political movement relied on Twitter for discussion and updates. Mastodon or any fediverse is simply too niche and most people don’t have money to fund local general instance. There were several local fedi instance (Mastodon and Lemmy), but all of them quickly dead for low donation.

    Japanese-side is still alive (in positive manner) but people are making backup account on Bluesky and Japanese Misskey instances.

    fubarx ,

    The otherwise sensible people I know who are still on Twitter all say it’s because of a specific interest or group, and the community of people around it who are all on there as well. They all hate what it’s become but put up with it because nobody is sure where else to go.

    There’s also a sense of FOMO when it comes to realtime news updates. Until government, news media, and personalities go somewhere and take all their followers with them, it will be hard to break away.

    homesweethomeMrL ,

    Reality: you can stop fascism by deleting the app

    Everyone: doesn’t

    Siegfried ,

    Oh, i didnt know this was like IT. i’ll tell my russians friends just to ignore putin’s regime

    Eximius ,

    If by ignore, you mean stop paying taxes and working in any capacity for government in one go, yes would work. The only fear is being singled out, if more than 0.5% of the people do it, army wont even have the guts to get tanks out, they will join.

    Siegfried ,

    Touché

    Venezuela has ~70% of the people against the regime, (nearly 90% counting the 5M that were not allowed to vote) and the needle isn’t even moving.

    And in Russia being “singled out” is apparently a national tradition.

    Sorry, I may be over pessimistic today.

    tourist ,
    @tourist@lemmy.world avatar

    Pardon my ignorance. I may have a mild brain injury.

    Could you perhaps rephrase?

    I’m not sure if I understood what you said.

    Siegfried ,

    In IT (the movie and, i presume, also in the book) ::: spoiler spoiler The kids realize that IT feeds on attention and that the only way to fight it is by ignoring it :::

    Imo, shitter (X) is a cesspool as it is now, but I dont believe that leaving it to the hordes is a solution to anything. We need a better approach to deal with this people.

    cupcakezealot ,
    @cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    Considering Meta is doubling down on disinformation, more people should go to Mastodon and Bsky over Threads or Twitter.

    Moah ,
    @Moah@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    Is blue sky really ok? Considering who started it…

    cupcakezealot ,
    @cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    i don’t think jack funded it he was just an original board member; but he left the board a month or two ago.

    ripcord ,
    @ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

    Yeah, it seems pretty good.

    otter OP , (edited )

    The bit in the square brackets in the title was mine, because that’s what I went into the article to look for. If you’re on Mastodon and interested in that content:

    The text from the article:

    Glaciologist Ruth Mottram had more than 10,000 followers on Twitter but left in February and joined an alternative scientists’ forum powered by Mastodon -– a crowdfunded, decentralised grouping of social networks founded in 2016.

    “It’s really been a revelation in many ways. It’s a much quieter and more thoughtful platform,” she told AFP.

    On Mastodon, “I haven’t had any abuse at all or even people questioning climate change. I think we’d become far too used to it on Twitter… I had blocked loads of accounts over on the birdsite (Twitter),” she said.

    fossilesque ,

    Ruth is a very kind person, her posts are amazing!

    fiend_unpleasant ,

    I gave her a follow. She seems like a nice lady. I hope she enjoys the fediverse a little more than the "nether world"

    madjo ,

    Is there a list of all scientists that made the move to Masto?

    Churbleyimyam ,

    That’s great news. Looking forward to having more climate scientists on Mastodon.

    NineMileTower ,

    Hell, I would like to have ANYONE on Mastodon. It feels so dead.

    madjo ,

    Start following hashtags of things you’re interested in. And interact with people in those threads.

    daniskarma ,

    Does it?

    My Mastodon feed is more alive than my twitter feed used to be years before its demise. And also in my native language, if I were to follow english speaking people I’d be overwhelmed.

    The trick is not to rely to much on the instance local feed and start following people from every instance.

    Wiz ,

    Yes, and…

    You can follow (and use) hashtags of topics you like.

    Default_Defect ,
    @Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

    Every time I give it another shot and look for things and people to follow, I find nothing.

    MonkderVierte ,

    That was a year ago.

    andros_rex ,

    The Franklin Standards need to be on everyone’s radar. They don’t want your kids to learn about climate change.

    Explain how and why Earth’s climate changes over time.

    Climate changes continually at all time scales and Earth’s climate has never remained constant.

    The Earth’s climate has varied greatly between glacial advances and retreats that correlate with cyclical oscillations in Earth’s orbit around the Sun (Milankovitch Cycles, precession).

    In addition to being affected by the climate, the biosphere also has a significant effect on the climate, including self-regulation and resiliency (carbon-oxygen cycle, hydrological cycle).

    Humans are just one of the many influences on Earth’s climate (urban heat island effect, wetland drainage, deforestation, agriculture).

    Computer models of climate are simplified simulations of the real world, and make prognostications that are inherently uncertain.

    Global weather forecast models (short term) and climate models (long term) are quite different in their design, their strengths, weaknesses, value, limitations, and uncertainties.

    The wording is subtle, but you can see how they are attacking the idea of anthropogenic climate change. (There’s similar fuckery with evolution and some subtle anti-trans stuff.) Oil and gas companies have a lot of money and can afford a lot of propaganda. No states have adopted these standards yet - we think Florida and Texas will go first, then Oklahoma will follow. But this information warfare.

    BallsandBayonets ,

    Humans are just one of the many influences on Earth’s climate

    Proceeds to list a bunch of other things that are the fault of humans.

    notsofunnycomment ,
    @notsofunnycomment@mander.xyz avatar

    Thanks for pointing this out. The level of misguidedness is painful.

    Teppichbrand ,

    Never understood why nobody calls him an “american oligarch”

    queue ,
    @queue@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    Oligarchs are only for the rich outside of the Thirteen Eyes. American oligarchs are called lobbyists and job creators.

    azertyfun ,

    I mean, he’s actively supporting the opposition (Trump) right now. Were Trump to win then he’d certainly be in a very good position within Trump’s desired oligarchy. Until then he’s just a very rich asshole whose main major concrete political power comes from his ownership of Twitter and (largely artificial) audience. If anything his support of Trump kneecaps him in his ability to run his businesses as the Biden and hypothetical Harris administrations are not as likely to let him keep getting away with all the blatantly illegal shit he keeps doing.

    Michael Bloomberg OTOH fits the term pretty well, as he’s a very major donor to the DNC and that certainly makes him very close to the ear of the president and policy decisions.

    vegeta ,

    4chan—>8chan—>Xchan?

    SlopppyEngineer ,

    Light speed -> ridiculous speed -> ludicrous speed

    “They’ve gone to plaid!”

    jaggedrobotpubes ,

    If we can’t abandon Obvious Disaster Twitter we definitely can’t abandon the obvious disaster that is everything we think of as normal that’s driving civilization off a cliff.

    bappity ,
    @bappity@lemmy.world avatar

    You can find utterly vile replies from blue checks on that site now, even on the most heavenly, innocent, morally correct tweet. It’s insane.

    don ,

    Ah Twitter. Nearing its evolution as the internet’s premier perpetually-full septic tank.

    Allonzee , (edited )

    I just wish there were a way to preserve these records in a format with enough longevity to survive until the next sapient species evolves after we destroy ourselves and the human habitability of the planet for a couple million years.

    They could use the warning against indulging greed and willful ignorance, and we deserve to have others laughing at our species’ expense through time. We inherited paradise just to set it on fire eyes wide open. It’s an extremely low bar, but I hope the next global apex predator chooses to do better.

    BallsandBayonets ,

    We’re currently rhyming with history from less than 100 years ago (the rise of fascism), I don’t think having a warning is enough to prevent it from happening again.

    fossilesque ,

    nathanlesage.github.io/academics-on-mastodon/

    fiend_unpleasant ,

    I think this is going to happen more and more. As the delta semi-morons continue to erode civilization we are just going to "take our ball and go home" so to speak. We can science, tech, and culture around them and they will eventually be left out in their echo chamber desert fighting each other over the last minions meme scraps.

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