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Climate scientists flee Twitter [to Mastodon] as hostility surges (www.france24.com)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by otter@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world

132 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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

cross-posted from: https://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".

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[–] menemen@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

I am on Mastodon for 5 years now (fuck it is really 5 years since August 2019, that the hell) and just can't get into it. It just feels lonely over there. What am I doing wrong?

Tbh, I think it is the post statistics thing. It says "1 reply", then I click at ot and it has 4 replies and it ALWAYS says "0 davorites" even when 10 people comment how great that post was.

[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

For me it's the interface. I find it rough around the edges and not as inviting as Twitter used to be. I know it's seen as superficial but UX/UI is important to me.

Like for example, to create a post or reply it's usually on the left panel for some reason. I used to have trouble visually separating one post from the next in my head until I got used to it. Also, the way thread comments are nested could be improved. And why does it only show me the top 5 trending news stories? Why can't I browse more? Idk, overall I feel like I'm fighting the UI mentally.

I think Lemmy did a better job and has subtly improved on the details. I don't see Mastodon doing that much.

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I know it's seen as superficial but UX/UI is important to me.

Most of the people telling you it's superficial are programming nerds who themselves are intimidated by UX design so use cope to justify its trivialness.

[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

I know what you mean. I've had more than one conversation with devs who didn't understand design basics.

[–] SilentKnightOwl@slrpnk.net 0 points 2 months ago

What platform are you on? There are lots of alternative apps for both iOS and Android, and they can be customized beyond the defaults as well. I primarily use Moshidon on Android, and it's great.

[–] fpslem@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

What sort of stuff do you like? Maybe some folks can make some good recommendations to jump-start a more interesting experience.

Recommendations and boosts from other users are how I've discovered interesting people there, and at this point, my feed feels just as full as my old twitter feed.

If you like news, a lot of breaking news is happening on Mastodon much more accurately and faster than on Twitter. There are a LOT of publications on there now, here are a few off the top of my head:

Polygon (@polygon@mastodon.social)
The Conversation (@TheConversation@newsie.social)
The Intercept (@theintercept@jouna.host)
Voice of America (@VOANews@mastodon.social)
Ars Technica (@arstechnica@mastodon.social)
Semafor (@Semafor@flipboard.com)
Kotaku (@Kotaku@flipboard.com)
The Christian Science Monitor (@csmonitor@flipboard.com)
Fast Company (@FastCompany@flipboard.com)
The 19th (@19thnews@flipboard.com)
Vox (@Vox@flipboard.com)

There are a lot more local news sources too, so depending on where you live, you can probably follow news for your specific area. The account @FediFollows@social.growyourown.services regularly bundles up follow suggestions for different regions, interests, and topics. If you go that account and search for a hashtag (i.e., #texas) you'll get a lot of active and high-quality local accounts to follow.

[–] Gsus4@mander.xyz 0 points 2 months ago

Twitter's format feels a bit like yelling into the void and waiting for replies...you may luck out and get some engagement from a hub or a small subgraph of the network. Mastodon makes that stronger by removing the algorithm (I'd like there to be a user-customizable feed sort algo by an array of parameters, not sure what the technical limitations to that are: processing, security?)

Comment trees feel better (to me at least), because there is a hierarchical origin, a native indexing by topic>post>comment>countercomment...it sort of resembles how we relate with the world or navigate maps.

[–] Microw@lemm.ee 0 points 2 months ago

The statistics thing is a downside of how Mastodon implements ActivityPub.

Two possibilites:

I think you can simply hide the counts if it irritates you.
You can install Fedifetcher to pull in missing interactions to your local server: https://github.com/nanos/FediFetcher