ScottinSoCal 🇺🇦 🕊 🏳‍🌈 @ScottSoCal@computerfairi.es

Great news: the GOP mayor of Mesa AZ endorses Harris. "Now more than ever, we need leaders who will put country over party." [de-paywalled link from @azcentral] http://archive.is/KC91o

I'd like to see more "lets reflect on what the culture of the community that has been curated on the fediverse is, and how the tooling has enabled that culture," and less "its just about switching instances" or "do this one thing and the racism bug will be fixed."

I see a lot of people talking about technical solutions to racist attacks on Mastodon. I used to do that too.

I was wrong.

Yes. There are things that could be done to improve technical protections. Signup validation, proactive moderation, visible replies, limiting who can reply.... But those don't actually solve the problem.

The problem is us.
The problem is what we allowed our community to be.

The tech community has a lot of racists in it. Some are billionaires. Many of those billionaires fund and support explicit racists and eugenicists. When these people, and those who want to emulate them, suffer zero consequences for their racism (and they almost always do), they get more brazen and more explicit. For some it's a thrilling game to see what they can get away with. For others it's a deadly serious ideology.

We need to make it clear that VCs, developers, managers, and influencers who don't take racism seriously won't get hired. That their companies will be boycotted. That nobody will work on their projects. It's not enough to not be racist. We need to be proactively anti-racist, and we need to hold everyone we work with to the same standard.

And when I talk about fighting racism, I'm not just talking about someone saying the n-word. The guy who says, "We don't allow politics in our company/project" has just stated that they are perfectly fine hiring and funding a racist, even if it drives others away. The company that says they don't need a DEI initiative because it "doesn't help the bottom line" has just told their employees that being biased is perfectly fine. You know what they call someone who sits down to dinner with Nazis; if you enable one, you are one. Every step backwards is one more racist who feels empowered to step out of their dank closet.

And fighting them has a cost. We may need to turn down opportunities, and be attacked in response. It's no accident that a lot of the Black (and LGBTQ+) folks who receive the most attacks are the same ones who stood up to their organizations, who called out and continue to call out the racism and bias, and who daily pay a price for it. The message is clear. "Do what they do and we'll make an example of you too."

All of this is going to be harder than we want, because the racists hold a lot of the purse strings. But the tech community is our community, we live here, and we're responsible for making it safe for others.

And I don't want to see one more post saying, "I haven't seen it myself, but...". If you're not seeing it, go out and search for it. Or turn around and look at your own organization and see how you can make it better. We can't cleanup Mastodon without cleaning up the entire community; it doesn't exist in a vacuum.

And yes, you can replace "racist" in what I wrote with any other fascist ideology. They are all cut from the same cloth, and a follower of one invariably joins the others as well.

The world is so freaking complex and wonderful.

Seriously though, fedi was *built* by furries, trans and queer folk, disabled neurodivergent people.

This is *the reason* the culture here is what it is. Why CWs are a thing. Why image descriptions are a thing. Why privacy matters here. Why moderation tools not only exist, but are usable — and used.

If you had joined and asked yourself "wow, how come this place is so chill and kinda… nice?" — that's thanks to all the nice people from communities some people call "weird".

So #KeepFediWeird.

We're a few days into the current wave of #TwitterMigration, and we're all excited for all the #NewHere folks to have joined.

But please be mindful you are joining a social network that was not a barren, desolate desert before. It was a blooming, cozy garden.

It's not just about finding your old connections from , it's also about making new valuable connections with folks on here, who might have moved years ago, or who might have never had an account on hellbird.

#Biden Administration Announces Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine

"This includes the authorization of a Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) package valued at up to $200 million to provide #Ukraine with key capabilities, including: air defense interceptors; munitions for rocket systems and artillery; and anti-tank weapons."

Press release https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3852671/biden-administration-announces-additional-security-assistance-for-ukraine/

#Harris highlighted endorsements from mayors of border towns Mon as she looks to blunt the impact of GOP criticism of her handling of illegal border crossings.

"I trust her to meet the needs of border cities/towns w/o taking advantage of us for her own pol gain, like her opponent” Somerton Mayor Anaya. VP: tasked with overseeing diplomatic efforts to deal with issues spurring migration. The Biden admin wanted to develop a LT strategy that gets at the root causes-.
#USPol https://apnews.com/article/kamala-harris-border-endorsements-arizona-efee13f3415d42d952363ad364258af7

Friends, I have been given some contact information for members of the Harris for President digital and social communications teams and I have started reaching out to them about our #MastodonforHarris fundraiser, https://secure.actblue.com/donate/mastodon-for-harris. If you have been considering a contribution, today would be a great day to show a lot of activity!

My work nemesis announced he is leaving to another job next week on slack and I replied with a cheesy positive best of luck message to mess with his head.

Within the last 24 hours a telecom tower has been toppled in Finland, a fire has broken out at the BASF chemical plant in Ludwigshafen, Germany, a fire has occurred on the German rail line between Bremen and Hamburg, and fiber optics cables have been sabotaged in 6 locations in France.

Who do you think is responsible? Putin any name you think in the replies.

Tough, thick, resilient, flexible, durable... a good gay top has it all
#vintageAd #gay #innuendo

I hope in 2024 we can stop caring what right wing attention freaks say about things. Oh, some guy hated the olympic ceremonies? Who fucking cares? It was beautiful, surprising, and joyful.

I'm done opening news apps and seeing stories about "the backlash" to popular things when you dig down and find out it's one weird christian complaining on instagram. That's not a real backlash!

Stop caring what random jerks think. Stop broadcasting their bad faith readings of everything.

Gen X here…

I’ve voted Blue my whole life, & I’m voting for Kamala Harris in November.

I’m doing everything I can to help elect the first woman president in American history.

It should have been Hilary in 2016, but better late than never.

It’s about damn time!

⚠️🇷🇺Russia loses another 1,310 invaders in Ukraine over past day (Statistics) https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3889845-russian-army-loses-another-1310-soldiers-in-ukraine-over-past-day.html #Ukraine #Press #USA #US #UK #EU #NATO #News #UnitedStates #EuropeanUnion #UnitedKingdom #Russia #russiaUkraineWar #10yrInvasionofUkraine
#NoUSRepublicans2024
#Article7 #Article7HungaryNow

New, by me: A federal district court in New York ruled that U.S. border agents must obtain a warrant before searching the electronic devices of Americans and international travelers crossing the U.S. border.

The judge warned that had they ruled in the government's favor, this ruling could have be used to target political opponents, who "would only need to travel once through an international airport for the government to gain unfettered access" to their devices.

More: https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/29/us-border-agents-must-get-warrant-before-cell-phone-searches-federal-court-rules/

And here is my on my own site talking about that news:

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/07/29/about-that-new-deal/

THE 3 SCOTUS REFORMS ENDORSED BY PRESIDENT BIDEN:

1. No immunity for crimes a former President committed in office.
2. Term limits for SCOTUS Justices.
3. Binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court.

Quick show of hands. ✋🏼 Who here absolutely loves Biden’s way of thinking?

There's a certain kind of leftist for whom no advancement is good.

Not "no advancement is good enough." No advancement that isn't burning society down and starting over is "good" (and that wouldn't be good if it actually happened) or even _progress_.

Sometimes it comes from a place of cynicism, often some other form of hurt, and it drives me _up a wall_ when I see it.