The suspensions of journalists from Twitter should have been a wake up call for media organizations 

There were just too many things going on about Twitter over the past week and all of them absurd. I’m happy that John Gruber took the time to summarize it all and even added the parts about Tesla and Jack Dorsey that I might not have touched on. 

I was in the Spaces discussion hosted by Buzzfeed reporter Katie Notopoulos but left just before Elon joined. At that point I was too upset at Jason Calacanis insisting on hypotheticals and the journalists refusing to answer one question so the discussion could move forward. Had I stayed I might have caught Elon rage quitting mid question.

This should have been a moment in which media companies realized and took a stand for their social presence instead of hoping or demanding that the suspension of their reporters’ accounts be lifted. The CNN statement is stronger but only by a smidgen.

This is an opportunity for media outlets to take control of their own social presence and join the fediverse. I touched on the issue last month in my post about the need for identity authentication but by hosting their own social presence, not only will companies be hosting their own and their own staff’s posts, they are not beholden to the rules, limitations, issues, or restrictions of other people’s platforms. 

The online social presence of media companies or any organization in general doesn’t even have to take the form of established platforms. They can create and design their own and still be connected to the federated network thanks to ActivityPub, the protocol that allows such things to happen.

Imagine Washington Post’s website address looking like washingtonpost dot wordpress dot com or their work emails looking like jbezos at gmail. Of course they have their own website and email with official corporate addresses.

For organizations with a half decent tech team, setting up and managing a fediverse presence is trivial. It’s time for them to take control of their own social presence.