This kind of came a bit unexpectedly today, but I have a new article out:

Fediverse Blocklists: Moderation in Noncapitalist Social Media | tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society

It focuses on those most controversial moderation tools on the #fediverse: #blocklists. I consider the philosophy and practice of listing to argue that those who run blocklist services work hard to mitigate their problems. I also make a case that we simply need more scholarship on content moderation on #noncentralized, noncommercial social media. #alternativeSocialMedia

someone please make an image search system that filters out #generativeAI images it is so, so miserable to search for images now.

I had a wonderful time yesterday talking to folks at the @FediForum book launch event for Move Slowly and Build Bridges! It was especially fun to see folks who were interviewed for the book! As usual, I want to share the text of my talk as well as the slides. You can see them here: https://robertwgehl.org/presentations/fediForumBookTalkText.html

Socio-Technical Story Hour

The latter has alt text for images, and there's a "presenter view" if you want to see the text and slides together. (Marp ftw). Also, this:

This might be a longshot... but the fediverse might be the best place for me to post this and get the reply of fellow Linux friends. One of my kid's buddies found an in-the-box Samsung SM-T113 "Tab." Doing searches, I see it may be possible to put something like PostMarketOS on it. Anyone out there have experience in this? boosts appreciated #Linux #keepingStuffOutOfLandfills

I'm having a virtual book event with the @FediForum folks next week!

FediForum

FediForum | FediForum special event: Robert W. Gehl introduces his new Fediverse book: "Move Slowly and Build Bridges"

I will talk about my new book, Move Slowly and Build Bridges: Mastodon, the Fediverse, and the Struggle for Democratic Social Media. Here's a link for more information about the book:

Move Slowly and Build Bridges, by Robert W. Gehl

#bookstodon

"Mark Zuckerberg called the people who trusted him with their data when he set up Thefacebook at Harvard “dumb fucks.” His extractive business of building intimate profiles of people to exploit for profit has made Facebook a trillion-dollar corporation and Mark a billionaire. So should you trust Threads and federate with it? Sure...." -- Aral Balkan

Move Slowly and Build Bridges, by Robert W. Gehl

#MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot

Hey, fedi, I'd like a bit of help. My book (

Move Slowly and Build Bridges, by Robert W. Gehl

) is out now in paperback. Yay! But as an author I have little insight into what that means, beyond the fact that Amazon is shipping it in North America. Folks have let me know the book is on bookshop.org (https://bookshop.org/p/books/move-slowly-and-build-bridges-mastodon-the-fediverse-and-the-struggle-for-democratic-social-media-robert-w-gehl/22541467?ean=9780197776681). What I'd like to know is: where else is it available? I want to collect this info for folks who don't want to buy from Amazon. I will put the info on my website. boosts appreciated!

What if there are no "best practices" when using generative AI for research? What if all use of genAI is inherently harmful? What if I don't want to participate in research using generative AI? These questions seem to be completely off the table now. This feels like 2006 all over again, when everyone everywhere seemingly thought they had to use corporate social media for their professional activities.

Pleased to announce that my book, Move Slowly and Build Bridges: Mastodon, the Fediverse, and the Struggle for Democratic Social Media, is now available online, and will be out in print in a couple weeks!

Move Slowly and Build Bridges, by Robert W. Gehl

That site has more stuff, too -- links to related articles, some notes about how I researched it, and a contact form in case you want to talk about the fediverse with me! (I'd be happy to chat with journalists about it!) #academicChatter #bookstodon #fediverse #mastodon

certainly been seeing a massive difference as to how people are discovering shows without Twitter. I think that’s because of the algorithm, the Twitter algorithm, would put stuff in front of you.... https://global.oup.com/academic/product/move-slowly-and-build-bridges-9780197776681?cc=ca&lang=en& #MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot