Gregory's Server🧵 Hey all! This is a new account, I'm still Zecharias Zelalem, freelance journalist and aspiring OSINTer providing news and analysis on the Horn of Africa for a variety of international media outlets. For the past year or so, I posted via @zekuzelalem@journa.host, but I've transitioned away from that instance. I'll be posting from this account from now on. After recent changes on the journa dot host instance, I had no choice but to set up elsewhere. Hope to continue exchanges and friendships here.
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When I left Twitter, I joined the Journa server primarily because it was run by journalists with verifiable credentials who were keen on creating a safe, clean space for journalists to interact free of the toxicity that was ubiquitous on Twitter. I'm still grateful to the likes of Evan Urquhart and Adam Davidson who administered the instance and never let us down in that regard. Journa was a refreshing change from what we had grown accustomed to, especially in the wake of the Musk takeover. Last week, the Journa server was taken over by new management. None of us were notified, and I found out when server updates caused account to freeze for a few hours. The instance has now been taken over by a "Jeff Brown" from Newsie. Now, I have no idea who he is and have no ill will towards him. But the individual is not a journalist. I couldn't find anything on him online that would suggest that he would be trustworthy enough to oversee management of Mastodon's largest journalism instances. Just as you wouldn't expect a doctor's forum to be run by someone who never went to medical school, or a gardeners' club to be run by someone who has never pulled weeds before, I find it unacceptable that a platform for journalists, including many who left Twitter due to trolling, slander, death threats...would be run by someone who has never worked in our field. How would I be certain that someone would uphold journalism ethics and values if they haven't walked a mile in our shoes? I think you get the point. I'm now on the @DAIR instance, which was founded by someone I consider a sister to me, and a team renowned globally for their commitment to online safety and ensuring the harms caused by big tech/AI don't get shoved under the rug. With my transition away from Journa dot host, I feel much more reassured about my Mastodon use. They may not be journalists, but I'm acquainted with some of the team and can vouch as being 100% uncompromising when it comes to online harm.  @ZekuZelalem @DAIR I love noticing that accounts I follow have seamlessly moved and that I'm still following them. Whatever the reasons. You found something that works better for you and off you go. This is the killer app of Mastodon. But as a journalist, it would be immoral and extremely selfish for me to stay quiet after taking care of my personal needs, and not express my serious concerns and worry for the future of journalism safety on Mastodon, and for the friends and colleagues who remain connected to both instances. I feel very uneasy at how things are looking like for the press. This is the last thing I expected to see happen on a platform that marketed itself as a safe escape in the midst of the #TwitterMigration. @ZekuZelalem I was happy to see your post from your new location -- my follow converted automatically. Clicking on your old account, it comes up as both greyed-out, and announcing you've moved to your new location (as well as providing a button to pull up the new address). I'm pretty darned impressed with that level of migration management built in. Monitoring instances is no easy task. It requires commitment, finances and a dedicated team. I can understand if the team overseeing Journa decided that after a year, other parties should shoulder the burden. On top of your day job, family etc...you're dealing with the daily demand to clean a platform that threatens to be swarmed by fascists, trolls and racists if abandoned for even a day. I imagine it can be rigorous. But...journalists should have been notified. Not notifying us was wrong. Personally, I'm not willing to compromise. I lived and worked in a country where journalism results in life sentences. As a result, I spent years in exile, investigating war crimes and it came with maneuvering past cyber lynch mobs, daily death threats, and slander both online, offline and on regime propaganda TV. Forgive me if I'm unwilling to gamble or risk anything. I can do without the uncertainty. Lastly, considering that journalists are by nature people who question and dig away at anything screaming a lack of transparency, I'm surprised that only a few (if any?) journalists have sounded alarms or protested. Journalists flocked to Mastodon last year, and a year later, there's barely a whimper as one man's silent takeover/ownership of journalism platforms and even a verification tool here has him establish a monopoly, despite none of you knowing anything about him. You shock me! FIN.  @ZekuZelalem I'm a bit surprised that it wasn't even discussed with the journalists on the instance!  @ZekuZelalem @fifilamoura This decision/transition being handled this way seems like an own goal for journalism here. Bummer @ZekuZelalem Jeff? The hardest part is to keep the block list up to date with his latestest creation  Is there nothing in the way of a professional guild of journalists, a union maybe, left? If not, isn't it about time anyone who believes in the mission of Independent Journalism, form such a body? And isn't it time for that body, to do things like *establish distribution channels* that cannot be seized by any blowdried scumbag with money? We're not selling fucking newsprint on the corner anymore wtf are they still letting this shit happen for |
@ZekuZelalem@dair-community.social @zekuzelalem@journa.host Good to see at least one journalist thinking critically about the (to me) worrying consolidation of the media on Mastodon under one man who seems of rather slippery ethics. (I'm not sure why you moved but it's something I find to be worthy of concern in this age of disinformation and media manipulation.)