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fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

So many liberals wrote off TikTok as just a dancing app that spreads disinformation. I remember liberals on Twitter linking to articles about TikTok that we later found out were planted by Meta.

Again, at the end of the day, TikTok is a corporate app. They are not our friends.

But the impact on our discourse and world view by Black, brown and queer people on TikTok is undeniable.

And we lost it. The TikTok algorithm will become the same reinforcing system that squeezes out marginalized voices

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

So when the government wised up and both parties wanted to ban TikTok in some form, the people on TikTok knew what was happening.

And it infuriates me how little we on the left listen to each other. When Biden was pushing for the TikTok ban, how you felt about it largely depended on whether or not you were on the app. Liberals off-app largely agreed with Biden despite what people on the app were saying.

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

A funny thing happens when people in the margins get to show us their reality, and teach us their history, without it first being filtered through a New York Times journalist.

You start to see the world differently. You start to question the narratives fed to us by corporate democrats and the social media elite. You gain a curiosity for books outside the airport pop-science / pop-social justice selection.

The constant flow of book recommendations on tiktok alone was life changing for many.

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

TikTok exposed an inequity that few on the left were talking about.

Before TikTok we didn't have Black foragers educating us on the intersection of foraging and social justice. We didn't have native Americans educating us on their history.

We didn't have Palestinians showing us first hand, in real time, the atrocities happening to them on our dime.

Those voices simply didn't exist before TikTok.

pzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷") wrote:

FREETHOUGHTBLOGS LIVES AGAIN!

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/02/28/we-live-under-the-dead-hand-of-ed-brayton/

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

The largely corporate-friendly, reformist world view that dominated the left's discourse for a decade was no longer the only game in town.

Suddenly, we all got to hear from Black and brown radicals, academia, historians, foragers, lawyers, activists etc.

Trans people got more stage time too. They challenged our preconceptions about what it means to be trans. One of my fav people on TikTok as a trans pastor from the mountains of West Virginia. A true philosopher.

Boosted by soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker"):
rusty__shackleford ("Rusty Shackleford") wrote:

Boosted by soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker"):
fj ("Frédéric Jacobs") wrote:

🤦Oh, it’s the Snowden revelations all over again.

They are claiming that AI-powered mass surveillance is a good thing but mass **domestic** surveillance isn’t

https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

TikTok wasn't interested in courting established influencers. Not at first, at least. It wanted to make homegrown celebrities.

Which means TikTok wasn't favoring people from institutions that lack diversity. With the FYP, they leveled the playing field. Anyone could go viral and cultivate an audience.

And wouldn't you know it, when you level the playing field like that, you get greater diversity in the discourse.

Boosted by pzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷"):
arrrg@kolektiva.social ("Charlie the Anti-Fascist Dog") wrote:

Many children, at least 50, went to school in Iran, hugged their parents and said good bye, and the US government killed them. Blew them to pieces because it serves the interests of a few monsters who we allow to rule over us.

At some point accepting the unacceptable must become unacceptable.

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

Bluesky, Post News (rip), and Substack Notes all courted Twitter's biggest accounts. Their recommendation engines pushed hard to get these accounts in front of new audiences (or old audiences who migrated).

None of them tried to make homegrown personalities. They just wanted Twitter celebrities.

You see how, even when new opportunities arise, the system just reinforces itself.

TikTok was different.

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

Ahhhhhh this is such a damn good example of how white supremacy reinforces itself over and over again. No one is deliberately shooting for this outcome, but also, no one is deliberately trying to fix the inequity.

For a decade, these voices gained large audiences, in no small part thanks to Twitter's favorable exposure.

And then microblogging fractured. And we saw white supremacy reinforce itself again.

Boosted by jwz:
oneunderscore__@threads.net ("Ben Collins") wrote:

It's note for note.

https://theonion.com/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entire-mideast-region-and-1819594296/

Boosted by jwz:
ceej.online@bsky.brid.gy wrote:

our government combines the impulse control of pete hegseth, the intellectual rigor of rfk jr, and the attention span of donald trump with elon musk’s signature sense of humor

Boosted by ChrisWere@toot.wales ("Chris Were ⁂🐧🌱☕"):
hootdotwhales@toot.wales wrote:

I may be the least Welsh person here (or on earth) but I’m feeling the honorary Welsh pride on behalf on the #tootwales community this evening.

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

For most of the 2010s, left-leaning voices on social media were predominately white and reformist. You can trace this back to Jack Dorsey's initiative to make Twitter the web's town square—events, breaking news, discourse, etc.

Twitter, predictably, tapped into institutions like journalism, publishing, socialites, etc, all of which lacked racial diversity.

So from the jump, social media discourse on the left was flawed.

Boosted by ChrisWere@toot.wales ("Chris Were ⁂🐧🌱☕"):
seav@en.osm.town ("Eugene Alvin Villar 🇵🇭") wrote:

RE: https://en.osm.town/@seav/112217310004579603

#Veritasium recently published a very comprehensive and educational video about the XZ Utils backdoor incident two years ago: https://youtu.be/aoag03mSuXQ

More info about the backdoor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XZ%5FUtils%5Fbackdoor

The toot that exposed the backdoor to the world: https://mastodon.social/@AndresFreundTec/112180083704606941

#XZUtils #Linux #OpenSource #backdoors #exploits #infosec

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

I think it's impossible to overstate how influential leftist voices on TikTok were from about 2019 to 2024. And how flippant liberals outside of the app were to the idea of a US takeover.

Yes, it's unfortunate that this movement had to occur on a corporate app. But this is a two things are true situation.

No other social media platform uplifted more Black, brown, and queer voices in the history of social media. And it's very clear how that happened.

Boosted by soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker"):
skeletor@mas.to ("Inspirational Skeletor💀") wrote:

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
davidgerard@circumstances.run ("David Gerard") wrote:

Wot's a good cheap* mirrorless camera that works for video and streaming? Presumably HDMI stream output i guess.

If you do this, what do you use?

* yeah yeah relatively speaking

Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
drj@typo.social ("David JONES") wrote:

I am free. I can do anything. I am Horse.

adam@social.lol ("Adam") wrote:

I’m interview #1302 on Uses This, in case you want to know about my super boring setup! https://usesthis.com/interviews/adam.newbold/

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
timnitGebru@dair-community.social ("Timnit Gebru (she/her).") wrote:

I have nothing good to say about Anthropic just like I have nothing good to say about Muskrat during his spat with the orange man, or any of the orange man's associates when he turns on them.

Anthropic knowingly partnered with the pentagon. Their other partner, Palantir, is probably the most evil tech company in the world, which, among other things, powers the ICE abductions of members of our communities. I can go on and on.

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

"Objects not data: a photography and illustration print experiment"

https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2026/objects-not-data-art-prints/

> Over the next few months, I’ll be experimenting with selling art and photography prints as a way to fund my work on this newsletter

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

Sometimes all you can do is go out and capture the snow #photos #iceland #nature

Boosted by ChrisWere@toot.wales ("Chris Were ⁂🐧🌱☕"):
anon_opin ("Anon Opin") wrote:

The pressure to be original and unique in one's opinions is the reason so many people have terrible takes. There's a limited number of truths and infinite available lies.

Boosted by ChrisWere@toot.wales ("Chris Were ⁂🐧🌱☕"):
ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us ("Emeritus Prof Christopher May") wrote:

Apologies, I was not going to post anymore on Thursday's by-election.... but I've just read this comment by an un-named Labour ministersin the FT:

'A Green victory is easily the worst outcome'....

NO!!!!: a ReformUK Ltd win would have been the worst outcome... the very idea that Labour could see Hannah Spencer's victory as worse than Matthew Goodwin & Reform winning pretty much sums up the problem with the Labour Party!

#politics #Greens #GortonAnd Denton

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

“Five Things: February 27, 2026 | As in guillotine...”

https://loudpoet.com/2026/02/27/five-things-february-27-2026/

All five links are interesting reads.

baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

“Secret Agent Man”

https://2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/secret-agent-man/

> Some weeks, the education technology news is incredibly grim, and sorry to say this was one of those weeks. (Warning: this is a long email.)

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
davidgerard@circumstances.run ("David Gerard") wrote:

Copilot: insecure and unhelpful — but oh, those influencers!

how does this keep happening

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LVCunCF7Es&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260227-copilot-insecure-and-unhelpful-but-oh-those-influencers - podcast

time: 6 min 40 sec

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/02/27/copilot-insecure-and-unhelpful-but-oh-those-influencers/ - blog post