Post #958014

2026-04-06 13:14 UTC

It’s been a weird couple days; I keep running into this talking point that “journalists won’t use Mastodon unless we incentivize engagement farming”. Meanwhile I’m having a *great* experience here, because I use it to— I dunno— actually talk to people and form relationships? I reject the premise that mastodon isn’t useful for reporters. I think it’s more accurate that modern news orgs use social media in purely extractive ways. You might get more reporters that way, but you won’t like them.

Replies (5)

@Haste@mastodon.social 2026-04-06 13:19

And I mean, is that really want you want? Or is it just what you’re used to?

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@OliviaVespera@spacey.space 2026-04-06 13:22

@Haste I really like this. Thank you writing this. I mean it is useful to be able to reach the people who care about your work but we should form real relationships with people who care.

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@rhold@norden.social 2026-04-06 13:26

@Haste this is neither an AD platform nor a platform for one way communication to build an audience which is just consuming. Hence it's uninteresting for 90% of journalist making a living in corporate media. Let's keep it that way. Everybody else who wants real connection and two way conversation is welcome, though.

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@gdinwiddie@mastodon.social 2026-04-06 15:41

@Haste I think “engagement farming” is an odd term. It seems to me that many journalists are in broadcast mode, and don’t have time for conversation. My view is that Mastodon is fine for conversations (depending on your cultivation of follows) but not so great for broadcasting. I’m OK with that.

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@pa27@mastodon.social 2026-04-06 17:16

@Haste It simply confirms what we already know - investigative journalism as we used to know it has gone....

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