Francis 🇾🇪 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ @francis@greenplenty.social

I am not going to invoke his name, but i was thinking as I rode through rain this morning that beyond the risk of Twitter dying a quick and idiotic death, the other major risk for many of us is that - if what he’s doing their actually works - a whole generation of tech company CEOs will have an example they can latch on to for running a tech company like a Victorian workhouse; the small progresses we’ve made on reducing workplace toxicity and unreasonable working practises are on the line.

It's cool how the government have run the country into the dirt and then they get to go on speaking tours or piss about on reality TV whilst people queue up at food banks and die waiting in ambulances and live like Victorian peasants, shivering and hungry. What a great system.

Don't believe the hype. The UK's Bill of Rights is a con. Far from improving them, it weakens rights protections.

#RightsRemovalBill #UKPolitics #HumanRights

Here's a piece I wrote a little while ago for @humanrightswatch -- the last time this misguided piece of legislation was on the Parliamentary agenda. Although the revised Bill remains to be seen, I would guess it's going to come back with some even more worry anti-migration provisions, curbing access to courts. https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/22/uk-governments-bill-wrongs

Just because it is Monday morning and the #TwitterMigration is still going on, it may be worth repeating that #science would do well to replace their antique journals with modern technology:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5526634
The three most important reasons why:
- The most prestigious journals publish the least reliable science:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00037/full
- Journal prices are tenfold inflated:
https://f1000research.com/articles/10-20/v2
- Open infrastructures for research data, code, models, software, etc. are sorely needed.

Here’s an idea: let’s call people “people” on the fediverse instead of “users” whenever we can.

Compare:

“There are 42 users on this instance.”

vs

“There are 42 people on this instance.”

Which acknowledges our humanity more?

Language matters. We don’t need to perpetuate mainstream technology’s othering/colonial framing of “us” – designers/developers/other “clever folks” – and “them” – the users (usually one step removed from “dumb user” and usually the ones who get used).

#peopleNotUsers

Alright, this thread is dedicated to your favorite old school R&B tracks. Drop a song!

#BlackMastodon