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Turns out Donald Trump isn't the only world leader with a tech billionaire "first buddy" who gets to serve as an unaccountable, self-interested de facto business regulator. UK PM Keir Starmer has just handed the keys to the British economy over to Jeff Bezos.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/22/autocrats-of-trade/#dingo-babysitter
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@pluralistic this info is so important and yet completely ignored by the public. It's crazy.
@pluralistic good grief. What the hell are they doing
@Flisty @pluralistic Divvying up the spoils of the oligarchs' successfully waged class war.
@pluralistic Never voted for the guy, felt he would sell us out to America without even a vote and oh look, he has....
Really awesome that Tony Blair turned Labour into Tory-light, isn't it? 
@SaftyKuma @Lazarou @pluralistic and now Starmer is British Joe Biden.
While intuitively it seems like this is how "unlisted" works, I assure you, that is not how it works, You've been given misinformation so pervasive that it constitutes the fediverse's first urban legend.
Here's an explanation of how unlisted works, how threading works, and how to manage threads in your timeline:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/16/how-to-make-the-least-worst-mastodon-threads/
@pluralistic @Difficile I refer you to this github issue on the mastodon code adeptly called "the doctorow problem":
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/8615
We've been begging for a way to "fold" subtoot threads out of the main timeline, but as yet no movement on this issue...
@bensb@genomic.socialI love that its actually called the Doctorow problem.
@bensb @pluralistic @Difficile is there a way somehow somewhere to sponsor development of specific features? I'd throw some €€€ to support the implementation of that feature... and others! I like the idea that users can call for future developments, and when possible also contribute financially.
@bensb @pluralistic @Difficile I really miss the days when we could just easily customize our clients to do this kind of thing for us.
Load a script into (or write a script for) mIRC and voilà: sub-optimal behaviour redefined.
@bensb @pluralistic @Difficile
The fact that there is now a "doctorow problem" based on his threads suggests maaaaaaaybe that a technical solution isn't the only possibility?
Personally I set up a filter to hide all the rest of the posts. But I think it might be something to consider for @pluralistic as well. Maybe just post a few chunks and send people to your blog if they want to keep reading?
@Charlesflorian @bensb @Difficile
Absolutely not.
The first line in my bio is "I post long threads."
If you don't want long threads, you shouldn't follow me.
I also publish the threads in many formats, including machine-readable fulltext RSS. They are licensed CC BY. There are many ways to get my work without reading it here if you disprefer threads on Mastodon and I won't be offended if that's what you prefer.
But to quote my bio: "I post long threads." That's what this account is for.
The easiest solution for my annoyance at threads is to just mute anyone posts them, I guess.
@Difficile @bensb @Charlesflorian I fully support that solution.
@pluralistic @Difficile Since I believed the legend until just now, I'm gonna screenshot the relevant paragraph from that post:
@jef @pluralistic @Difficile thanks for this! I also got the wrong idea. In my case from the (otherwise fantastic) guide on mastodon threads by @FediTips - maybe it could be corrected there?
#feditps
@skatan @jef @pluralistic @Difficile
I didn't write that it hid it from people who followed you, I wrote that it hides it from public timelines like Local and Federated and hides it from searches and followed hashtags:
https://fedi.tips/who-can-see-my-posts-in-mastodon-how-do-i-send-dms-in-mastodon/
The reason it's polite to use unlisted for replies in a thread is to stop filling Local, Federated and search results with massive numbers of posts from the same thread, especially as search results are shown in chronological order.
@pluralistic @FediTips @skatan @jef @Difficile
"Remember, by design Mastodon doesn't have a search function"
That's...not entirely true. Mastodon does, but requires you to enable ElasticSearch (or OpenSearch) on your instance for it to work.
Full-text search of your own posts is enabled for all of your posts when this is turned on for the instance. In addition, you can also full-text search any post from anyone so long as you've marked it in some way: bookmark, favorite, boost.
Lastly, Mastodon added a feature where you can opt-in your Public posts to full-text search as well. This will let people full-text search your Public posts, if you've opted in, whether they've interacted with the post or not.
Just to flesh out the picture there a bit.
@pluralistic @FediTips @skatan @jef @Difficile Incidentally, Unlisted hashtags serve a different purpose, I find:
It becomes a directory to those hashtags, rather than included in searches as part of the directory itself.
@pluralistic @skatan @jef @Difficile
It's your call what you want to do, I'm just trying to keep people aware of how this place works.
If you use public for all your posts, your posts will all show up in search results. Because search results appear in chronological order, lots of public posts back to back with similar search terms and/or hashtags could swamp results.
There is a search function on Mastodon, it requires opt-in to be indexed but not to see results:
https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-opt-into-or-out-of-full-text-search-on-mastodon
@FediTips @pluralistic @jef @Difficile sorry for misquoting you!
I guess there are good arguments for both practices then and it's pretty much up to taste then...
About 99% of Mastodon believe this and messes around with the visibility of posts, making the first "public" and the subsequent ones "unlisted".
No, people, you're not causing less "noise" in other people's timelines!
You're just making it impossible to search for specific topics in the thread.
I hate that (mostly because, I have explained this about 100 times, but they still do this shit)
@pluralistic @Difficile thanks for posting this. Getting tips on how to handle reading threads is super helpful. It was the one thing that kept me on twitter so long. And yes, composing in stanzas. I really like reading your essays in stanza format.
@pluralistic @Difficile can we as groups of users, sponsor some new features we'd like to see developped and added to mastodon/clients? If there was an organisation somewhere listing and managing bounties for implementing features, I would 100% throw money into it.
@pluralistic @Difficile Most of the time I use a web-native (client-side JS) client called phanpy.social, which does threads correctly.
It keeps self-reply threads in chronological order and collapses them. I wish the native-native clients and official web frontend would do this. It just makes sense.
I created an "app shortcut" to the page in Firefox on Android and it works just fine. Notifications, too.
@aaronbieber @pluralistic @Difficile +1. I do the same. This web app is the best Android client. I use it on the desktop too.
@Difficile I have a filter set up to hide posts with that text @pluralistic puts on all his mid-thread posts from my timeline. That way I only see the first one and any replies he boosts, but I can look at the whole thing manually if I open it up
Yeah I unfollewed his fediverse account and switched to RSS because of the long threads in reverse order.
@pluralistic I’ll be writing to my MP about this. Here’s how to do it if anyone else also feels inspired to:
https://www.writetothem.com
They might like to know that they’re on course to lose their job in a few years’ time with this behaviour.
As ever a brilliantly researched piece
"Amazon is now both the official and the unofficial central planner of the UK economy, with a free hand to raise prices, lower quality, and destroy British businesses, while hiding its profits in Luxemourg and starving the exchequer of taxes."
#Amazon
#UKLabour
#CMA
#Regulation
#Starmer
@pluralistic
Insanity prevails. 
'The "first buddy" role that Keir Starmer just handed over to Jeff Bezos is, in every way, more generous than the first buddy deal Trump gave Elon Musk.
Starmer's government claims they're doing this for "growth" but #Amazon isn't a force for #growth it's force for extraction. It is a notorious underpayer of its labour force, a notorious tax-cheat, and a world-beating destroyer of local economies, local jobs, and local tax bases.'
https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/22/autocrats-of-trade/#dingo-babysitter
@pluralistic is spot on here
We recognize what Bezos does, too. If a distribution centre looks like it will unionize, he shuts it down.
What kills me about this is his net worth is so ridiculous he's got more than all of his employees combined for multiple lifetimes. What is he so afraid of? Having a million less in the bank account so he can treat his employees better with shorter hours and more staff to fill the gaps?
I can understand a small business that's barely clearing the books fearing unions, which is probably why they just up and treat their workers better... but this?