Mastodon's fundraiser for Kamala Harris needs fediversal support to reach it's 500,000$ goal
ActBlue — Forbidden
Initiated by https://mastodon.social/@heidilifeldman
Holy shit, they're nearly there! Does she even have a mastodon account? Mastodonians could be spamming her campaign to join it. Looks like she has a big following on it.
Harris is on Threads and recently you've been able to follow people on Threads from Mastadon.
A Mastadon "native" account would be best of course, especially considering the amount raised.
If the point of the fundraiser is to convince her to join mastodon, wouldn't 450k send just as strong of a message as 500k? Do what you want with your money, but why? Why are we dumping hundreds of grand towards a politician (who's just raised over 300mil in two weeks) on the off chance they will decide to make a mastodon account? The fundraiser even says "encourage her to create a distinct presence on mastodon". The language is so noncommittal it seems like even the people who organized this don't expect anything to happen after they dump a cool half mil into a campaign that's already wildly successful.
Imo if the point of this fundraiser is to promote and grow mastodon/the fediverse then why isn't the money put towards ads, funding instances, developing the fediverse, or a million other things. That amount of money could go a very long way for the fediverse if it were put towards something other than a plea to Kamala Harris to pretty please maybe think about possibly signing up for mastodon
"We have the chance to save U.S. democracy and rule of law, to elect the first woman President of the United States, and to send TFG packing. By contributing to Kamala Harris's campaign via this portal, we can also encourage her to create a distinct presence on Mastodon, not mediated by Threads or any other social media provider."
Promoting Mastodon isn't even a tertiary goal. It's just an "also encourage". The primary goal is fundraising for a political candidate.
I see two goals in that paragraph:
Fundraiser for Kamala
Encourage Kamala to make a mastodon account and promote on it over other social media
People have already donated hundreds of millions of dollars to her via more official channels. This is a grassroots fundraiser targeted specifically at mastodon users (and now the fediverse at large because of this post) with the stated incentive of trying to encourage Kamala to use mastodon over other platforms. You could chalk the mastodon but up as secondary but there isn't even a third thing in that paragraph for the mastodon portion to be less important than. Given the amount of press the Harris campaign has already received, it seems like this fundraiser's primary purpose is to promote mastodon via contributing to the campaign and tacitly asking Kamala to sign up.
If mastodon users wanted to donate to the campaign, they have probably been exposed to several other avenues to do that before they would have even seen this. So what's the point of doing a special "fediverse only" fundraiser? Apparently it's to encourage her to create an account. It's pandering and I don't see a point in shilling a super special fediverse fundraiser for a candidate who's already drowning in small donation money when that money could be used to promote the fediverse in a much more meaningful way
If you’d like to start a different fund for that, that’s fine. This fund is for Kamala Harris, and the people who donated money to it did it with the understanding that that’s what it’s for.
You can’t just decide to use the money for something else, because that is called fraud, and it’s a crime.
I'm not suggesting the organizers of this fundraiser.missappropriate the money. I'm saying that this fundraiser seems pretty pointless and the money would be better spent elsewhere
The complaint is that people care more about Kamala joining mastodon than actually spending money on mastodon.
Your point is irrelevant. No one insisted that people's money should be used for a purpose other than what they consented (please show me where anyone implied that). No one implied that the money isn't paid for kamala Harris with that understanding. Rather, they are complaining about people following such misguided aims.
"500.000$"
This is not American. Not saying you shouldn't donate to Harris, but seeing money written out that way seems fishy as shit to someone who would otherwise be looking to donate.
This is great, you should post it to !dataisbeautiful@mander.xyz
So, we're in agreement.
Those crazy Germans!
Would donate If it was possible for foreigners, but it's against US law for me to donate so I will refrain from doing so.
Thank you for respecting the integrity of our elections, at least what's left of it.
Elections where lobbying is rule of law do not have integrity worth respecting.
You have a US citizen friend you can give money to donate? Normally I wouldn't encourage going around the sanctity of our elections but since AIPAC had already tipped the scales of our primaries and they do the same thing, fuck it. Nothing is sacred anymore apparently.
So, getting two people in trouble instead of one?
I'll only donate if she makes a mastodon account and posts to it.
It's almost the least someone at the campaign could do. I'll donate eventually (they seem to be doing fine for now!), but it would be great to see them show some love for the superior principled social media outcasts of the fediverse and Mastodon.
I'm all for this...
But aren't the Democrats also kinda the party of Big Tech?
It would be amazing of campaigns start having a Fediverse presence, but still.
The deep-pocketed tech industry of Silicon Valley has historically voted for Democrats. But in the last month, a cadre of tech executives has risen up for Donald Trump, both on the grounds that he will be friendlier to the industry and that President Joe Biden was unfit to serve a second term.
Also because JD Vance is a Peter thiel acolyte, one of the founders of PayPal, the global spying company Palintir, and an early Facebook investor.
Theil is an avowed monarchist that wants an American king, has come out and said that woman should not be allowed to vote. He pumps endless money into "think tanks," crackpots and political races like Trumps to push an incredibly extremely brutal "the rich are your betters" policy forward in this country. This included dropping 10 million on Vance's Senate run in Ohio.
Eh, Elon Musk and the crypo industry are not "Big Tech" to me.
Peter Thiel kinda is, but he's also kinda a black sheep. And their support of Republicans isn't exactly surprising.
Maybe there just trying to get back at him because truth social stole mastodon’s code without publishing the changes properly
Contribution rules
- I am a U.S. citizen or lawfully admitted permanent resident (i.e., green card holder).
Does anyone know why this rule exists?
So foreign agents can’t donate to candidates that will benefit them. (But that happens anyway.)
Why the down votes ?
From a european point of view, donating to a political campaign is nothing we would even consider. Additionally, we are not even allowed to donate if we wanted.
This makes this whole post relevant to less than 5% of the world's population.
tankies.
I hate Illinois tankies.
Donated!
Mastodon people supporting the women who helped veto an anti-discrimination bill[0][1] because she's blue, why am I not surprised.
Yeah we should be throwing it to the rapist, obvs. Right Sergei?
Oh, should we add pedo to the list? Did we forget about his Epstein connection? 🤔
Well... I think it's better to vote for someone that is for one not a pathological liar..
Do what YOU want with your money.
But if you have spare money, please check out the #MutualAid hashtag (on mastodon) and consider helping those in need there.