If algorithmically increasing the political division and rage on social grew revenue the most, then 4chan would be the highest revenue generator. It's not.

The most engaging content is *fun content*. By far. It's not close.

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/111081046636696300

This is not saying that algorithmic content is good for you, or that growth at all costs is good for society (or even sustainable).

But please, stop trying to say that politically divisive content is the most engaging. It absolutely is not.

1/N

Everyone that understands this, predicted Twitter's revenue drop and valuation drop well in advance. 🙋🏿♂️

If you drive away the people that create disproportionate amounts of fun, engaging content (Women, Black folk, young folk, LGBTQIA), then engagement will go down.

If you increase the people who create politically divisive content (yes, this is a euphemism for racist and transphobic content) then you will also drive away advertisers.

What does this have to do with Mastodon?

2/N

Mastodon doesn't want or need advertising revenue.

It doesn't want or need an algorithmic feed.

But understand what most users are looking for in social media.

They're not looking for political enragement, or to be stressed out 24/7.

People are looking to have fun, be entertained and informed, learn, share, and connect with other good people safely.

Lack of community, safety, and onboarding are keeping people off of Mastodon. Not lack of rage driving algo.

3/3

You don't have to be racist to participate in systemic racism. US policing produces racist outcomes even from "not-racist" people. I'm going to explain (again):

* why I've probably been pulled over way more times than most people you know, even though most of the times I'm pulled over, I get no ticket (because I did nothing wrong)
* how I stopped getting pulled over so much (because I understand the system)
* And why lots of cops say that the average voter is more racist than the average cop

If they overturn that ticket, it doesn't count to your total. If they show up in court and you don't, they win by default. If you go to court to make sure the ticket sticks, you're in court, and not out writing more tickets. As a police officer, you lose.

You're incentivized to write tickets that "stick."

If you wrote an $80 ticket for a Black janitor in East Palo Alto, they can't afford the ticket, but they *really* can't afford to take a day off of work. And they don't like courthouses...

Imagine yourself as a police officer. Hopefully you don't consider yourself racist! You're all ready to fix the system "from the inside" by being a good cop.

Your police chief tells you that you must write 200 tickets a month. If you fail to write 200 tickets a month you will be fired.

Imagine you write a ticket for a rich white lawyer that lives in Atherton. They can easily afford the $80 ticket; they bill out at $800/hr! But they will take a day off work just to go fight the ticket in court🤡

If you write 220 tickets and 30 get overturned, you only wrote 190 tickets. Your job is at risk. If you write 210 tickets and only 2 get overturned, you're good!

Not all Black folk are poor, but your probability of getting a ticket that sticks is higher with Black drivers. If you (illegally) search the vehicle and find weed, you might get 2 tickets! The daily double!

But you can't search the car or the person, without escalating. You are *incentivized to escalate*.

This makes Black people not trust police officers. Because police officers seem like they are always trying to find some reason to mess with you, violate your civil rights, and "hem you up." And you visibly see that they don't seem to do this with white folk.

Again, I'm not even talking about the racist cops here, of which there are many! I'm just talking about the ones who just go with the flow of what the system wants them to do.

Black cops do this too. Black cops pull over Black drivers.

As part of trying to understand why I get pulled over so much I've straight up asked cops and police chiefs why they pulled me over so much. And they say this.

For the most part, cops hate this system! It doesn't exist because cops like the arrest and ticket metrics. It exists because voters elect people that put ticket and arrest quotas on cops.

And because city budgets live on the revenue from tickets and court fees.

And this explains why cops can't solve crimes in Black neighborhoods...

Because police don't solve crimes the way that TV shows pretend they do. Most serious crimes, especially murders, are solved by:

1) someone calls the cops (caller)
2) someone tells the cops exactly what happened (witness)
3) cops gather enough evidence to show that the witness' story is credible
4) DA builds a case

Without callers or witnesses, it's almost impossible to even know who committed a murder, let alone get a conviction in court. And Black folk don't call or play witness.

So cops can make the murder rate in a city *go up* just by brutalizing innocent Black civilians more. 🙃

Because then Black people call the cops less.

So murderers are more likely to get away with it.

So instead of being caught after one murder, they rack up *huge* body counts.

Out of every 1000 white folk or Black folk, N are multiple murderers. But in white neighbourhoods, the killer is often caught before their second murder. In Black neighborhoods, the killer is often never caught.😢

This phenomenon has been known since the 70s.

So when in 2021, we are still making SCORPION units to "address the rising murder rate," it makes no sense at all.

Brutalizing Tyre Nichols makes the murder rate *go up* not go down. It makes it *easier* to get away with murder, not harder.

Think of any US city with a high murder rate.

Notice that it has a low murder clearance rate (they're not catching any murderers).

Notice that police brutality in that city is even higher than average.

When people say, "Fewer cops reduces crime" they're not being hyperbolic. US policing is so violent and racist, that the only thing that has been consistently shown to reduce the level of police violence against Black people is... not having police there at all.

Reduce the number of police interactions, and reduce the number of negative police interactions experienced by Black people. Solve problems without guns.

@Aviva_Gary

Meet cop Justin Hanners:

* Straight white man
* Southern boy
* Born and raised in Alabama
* Military combat veteran
* Harley riding biker
* Police officer who believes strongly in rule of law
* Not afraid to draw his weapon and take on "bad guys with guns"

Sounds like many US cops. Except...

He didn't get with the program. He didn't like harassing innocent Black folk via quotas.

3 guesses what happened to him...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zGeZiWOeGIc

*Policing* is more racist than *cops*.

The funny thing about the "tough on crime," folks, is that they get genuinely angry when any laws at all are enforced against them. 🙂🙃

Read this article and try to find out why the residents hate this rookie cop, and why the author felt the need to put his personal info in the article. Like, why do I need to know that he played lacrosse?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13555157/justin-timberlake-arrest-sag-harbor-police-officer-recently-hired.html

He gave a drunk driver a ticket. Isn't that what cops are supposed to do? He hasn't learned, "Don't ticket rich white people!" yet.

@doctormo

🧔🏻♂️"Twitter is a Nazi bar."

🧔🏿♂️"They are all Nazi bars."

@tob @doctormo

"That isn't fair."

It's super fair! 🙂

"The tools that trans people used to make a safe social media environment for trans people could be used to make a space for black people."

Could. But haven't been. For reasons.

"I think it's more complicated."

No, it's not. 🙂

"There's a twisted symbiosis that happens on Twitter and FB (and eventually BlueSky)."

And here too. People really believe Mastodon is some type of utopia, and it's not.

@tob @doctormo

"On those platforms, people share posts of people they hate more than they share posts of people they like. The algorithm puts "controversial" content in peoples' faces."

That's just not true. On TikTok, non-controversial stuff is shared much more. On Pinterest, non-controversial stuff is shared much more. On Instagram, non-controversial stuff is shared much more. Let me know when you see a pattern!🙂

It's a choice to optimize for 4chan-like content. It makes you *less* money.

@tob @doctormo

"But in a way, taking away the controversial stuff is worse than the harassment. Black Twitter thrives on that. Living in that hostile space and contradicting the narratives affirms that community."

Excuse me?

"Without the nascent hostility, there's no Black Twitter. Perhaps that's too bluntly put, like I said it's more complicated."

OK I'm out. ✌🏿

There are more racists in NYC than in Boise Idaho. Because no one lives in Boise.🤷🏿♂️

But there's a much bigger Black community in NYC than Boise. Safety comes from the Black community. Not the NYPD. Not Long Islanders. Not Trump voters in Queens.

Stop asking why Black folk are still on Twitter.