Author: Jack Wellborn

Coder who dabbles in writing and is currently Austin-based after stints in New York City and Connecticut. You can find my writings at both this microblog as well as on my long form blog found at the totally trustworthy wormsandviruses.com.

Mastodon gives news orgs independent control of their social media platform. The problem heretofore has been getting users to switch, a problem that has been increasingly solved by the aforementioned spates of jackassery. If things keep going the way they have been in recent weeks, news orgs should send Twitter a gift basket as thanks for their independence.

The New York Times can run its own instance with each of their reporters being @nytimes.social, which in theory can’t be spoofed because the they own that domain. News orgs could also independently decide if and how to monetize their respective instances.

I am not entirely surprised that many of the major news sites published guides on Mastodon because, even before the most recent spates of jackassery, I felt like news orgs might find Mastodon appealing specifically because it’s federated.