A grassroots fundraising campaign for the 2024 election is trending towards half a million dollars raised by Fediverse members.

The Mastodon For Harris campaign has raised close to $500,000 within two weeks of being live. It is probably the largest attempt for political organizing on the Fediverse, and may provide a playbook for other efforts going forward.

  • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    78·
    1 month ago

    First time I donated this cycle. Wanted to support a good candidate and boost the Fediverse profile. At this point just seeing the logo for the site formerly known at Twitter makes me sick.

    • KillingAndKindessEnglish
      39·
      1 month ago

      I mean, I myself was so fucking depressed that it was between the two, so literally anything that the Democrats would put up other than Biden I’m automatically going to be thrilled about. I could think of a few better options, actually quite the handful of better options than Harris, but you bet your sweet ass I’m still going to vote for her and support the ever living fuck out of her cuz fuck Trump.

      • SkyeStarfallEnglish
        7·
        1 month ago

        Maybe the Dems will finally learn that listening to their base helps

    • YTG123@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      14·
      1 month ago

      People are very justifiably terrified of Trump. And Kamala is really something new and fresh

  • WanderingVentra@lemm.eeEnglish
    25·
    1 month ago

    I kind of want to join Mastadon to help contribute both to the growth of this campaign and the fediverse in general.

    Anyone know a good equivalent to lemm.ee instance on Mastadon? General purpose, prioritized federating with everyone over heavy handed moderation (like lemmy.ml or lemmy.world)?

  • WhatThaFudge@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    11·
    1 month ago

    The comments on here vs the comments on the cross-post really shows the diversity of the fediverse on different instances.

  • lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    8·
    1 month ago

    Millionaires and politicians simping for money on Mastodon, while otherwise people who are actually disabled, homeless or in need struggle to even get their posts begging for contributions seen?

    Wow, didn’t expect that of all thing that would enshittify the Fediverse, it would be a politician going for the left.

    • Sean Tilley@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      6·
      1 month ago

      That’s not really enshittification, is it?

      I was under the impression that Cory Doctorow’s definition was largely based on how social media platforms entice people with “free” offerings, then gradually tighten the screws over time to make service worse. This usually happens when a platform becomes the dominant player.

      • lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        1·
        1 month ago

        Eh, language evolves, terms that follow normal grammar constructions eventually are expanded beyond their niches (see: “forbade” and all those verbs that start with “for”; as well as “embiggen” etc).

        “Enshittify” is literally just “make something shittier” (“en-” + “shit” + “-fy”). Sure it was coined for the idiosyncracies of this absurd timeline, and we are all glad for that – but really it’s just a correct word that has always existed it just went unused.

        Now, if you want to pedant, sure let’s go that way: Mozilla is also a platform that “entices people with a free offering” (Firefox), then “gradually tightens” (or, really, loosens) the screws over time “to make that service worse” (Pocket, Robot, post-Auralis UI, AIs, etc). This “usually happens when a platform becomes the dominant player” (in this case, basically the only big Gecko browser).

  • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nlEnglish
    6·
    1 month ago

    It makes total sense. If you want to find often wealthy, often progressive people, Mastodon and the even more obscure alternatives are a no-brainer. Even the poorer people on the Fediverse are often left-leaning (by American standards at least) so just giving the place attention will already spread a good chunk of goodwill.

    I suppose Biden is on Threads, but not everyone can interact with that part of the Fediverse because of defederation, so using Mastodon as a jump-off point makes sense.

    I don’t really get the whole American election cycle, I have no idea what all of those collected millions across different platforms can possibly be spent on in a race between “some woman” and “elite rapist convicted for fraud”. Maybe the state of the country is even worse than the news indicates, but it seems to me that you shouldn’t need to collect more than gas money to beat Trump…

  • Alphane Moon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    1 month ago

    So did Harris’ campaign open a mastadon account (this shouldn’t be all that difficult or costly) following this initiative?

    I am not the from the US, just curious. More official government accounts on Mastadon is good thing.

    I did recently notice that I could follow some people on Threads on one of my Mastadon account, that’s a good thing too.