FBXL Social

This is a big problem for Mastodon.

Canadian journalist Erica Ifill just had her mastodon.online account suspended without explanation. She's been sharing stuff critical of Mastodon re: intersectional issues.

I get the decentralized structure and idea that each server has its own rules. But this Reddit-style moderation, where moderators with god-complexes make mysterious and arbitrary decisions, is going to cause people migrating to Mastodon to flee in droves.

https://www.presscheck.org/journalists/erica-ifill

I also don't think it is a serious solution to tell people, especially those from vulnerable communities, to just go find a server that respects them / allows them to criticize racism, etc.

People are joining Mastodon in good faith, but if they encounter these problems once, twice or more, it starts to send them the message they're not welcome here. It becomes a real brand problem and platform integrity issue.

There are a lot of people with good intentions putting work and time into building this platform who are probably frazzled and burnt out by how quickly its growing (first among them, Mastodon's founder @Gargron no doubt).

That said, I think it needs to continually ask itself if its structure and rules are advancing its mission and values or getting in the way of them? TBH, this kind of stuff seems at odds with what I like about Mastodon.

@llebrun

or we're going to have a shake out of the more strict moderation that allowed Mastodon to sustain but isn't as useful as we approach critical mass. And people are going to leave the bigger instances for smaller ones and hopefully the model will prove itself. I think the best we can do is be the best possible community members (support support support) and explainer/advocates on Twitter etc.

@llebrun The diffrence between Mastodon and Twitter is that when this happens on Mastodon, you actually have options.

When it happens on Twitter, you don't.

Which one is better?

Do we really trust the rich more than the general public?

Eek.

Maybe she should start her own social media. I think I remember hearing that solution pretty often for years.

@llebrun this does not even cover that realistically if you hunted for your views, YOU CAN'T SELFHOST, they will get access to the server on arrest, the only solution is to use a 3rd party server, but then you risk getting moderated for now reason... somehow this is more complex that it seems

@llebrun There will no doubt be unfair bans. But how many times have social justice advocates been deplatformed on Twitter and FB?

At least with Mastodon, she can find another instance. And hopefully take her followers with her, because that's how its designed.

@llebrun "brand problem?"

Is everything a "brand" now?

Does email have a "brand problem?" Does the internet itself have a "brand problem?" No one would ever say those things with seriousness.

There isn't a "brand" to have a problem.

No doubt a fundamental misconception based on decades of billionaire control of communication.

And it seems increasingly like people are coming up with reasons why we should all go back to the false comfort of billionaire controlled communication.

Hard pass.

@llebrun > flee mastodon

Um, good?

@llebrun @Gargron Stop sucking the mastodong and just wall yourself off like a real man. Hugbox narrative control days are never coming back. Embrace Total Journo Death. HH.

@llebrun The new users in the last couple of weeks outnumber the users who were here before, seemingly by an order of magnitude. (I admit I don't have the numbers.)

The onus is on these new users, I think, to overcome a preexisting state of complacency, a result of years of coddling by social media corporations.

The "it", to which you are alluding, didn't even exist until just recently. It's a big group of people with hardly any structure at all. That structure still has to form.

@brentg @llebrun

There's a bit of give and take, sure, when joining any new community.

However, if we see that a certain group or groups of potential users seem to have a specific set of challenges, we do them and ourselves a disservice in not reviewing them to see if maybe, just maybe, we're in the wrong.

I get that I have also only been here a few weeks, but is Mastodon meant to be a closed community that you have to conform to, or one that welcomes, learns from, and adapts to new members?

@adammiller I agree with you. Rhetorical question: what percentage of Mastodon instance admins are BIPOC, disabled, and raised in abject poverty? Probably a lot more that at Tw/FB but probably not 51%. Therefore, even as a staunch supporter of the entire FOSS movement since the beginning, I feel like the ruling class of the tech community needs to swallow a bit of pride here and check their privilege as compared to their design principles - at times, at least.

@sj_zero @llebrun This is apparently too much to ask of people. They need to have someone do it for them. I.e., apparently, billionaires. #birdsite

How depressing.

Does it make sense to want a #safe world and then set up your model to be entirely #dependent on #billionaires?

Not to me.

#mastodon