I understand but lament the choice so many thoughtful people have made to publish their newsletters on the odious Substack. Surely they recognize that they are, at least indirectly, helping some of the worst people in the world spread and monetize malignant views.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:vaba7tf7ylt2kaavf4t2kotp/post/3mjfo4h6u7s2f
I guess this is the Nazi bar analogy, and I sort of get that. But I have a few questions.
First, and I know this is a bit reductio ad absurdum, but bear with me, should we boycott comcast because they let Andrew Tate use their wires? If not, where is the dividing line?
Second, I guess the argument here is that they are platforming an asshole, and using their non-asshole bloggers as leverage. Why doesn't this work in both directions? Can't I plunder Andrew Tate's followers?
A related question is, given that substack actually appears to work better than its competitors, how much does it cost us to not use it, both in terms of ease of use and in terms of reach.
And how much does it cost us to use it, in terms of the damage that their asshole users cause?
Suppose the answer is that the cost of not using it outweighs the cost of using it. Should we still not use it? If so, why?
I ask these questions because I know how easy it is to use substack, and also how easy it is to use alternatives like Ghost. I'm actually trying to decide what to do about this—this isn't an idle set of questions.
Right now, it feels a lot like not using substack is similar to not flying to conferences. Airlines are actively harmful in the world, but we don't really have a viable alternative. Should we silence ourselves by not flying?
A lot of people I admire, e.g. Amanda Litman, Anand Ghiridaradas and Waleed Shahid, use substack. Why are you right and they are wrong?
@abhayakara I always just do the best I can, it's impossible to boycott or move on from everything with shitty people on them or running them.
I don't use any Meta products for example to the point I have a pihole to try and fully block their tracking. I still use Google though they've proven time and time again to do shitty things. I have moved from Chrome and experiment with other search engines, but still heavily use their office suite and Gmail.
We quit Target but still use Walmart who is just as bad but the devil you know I guess.
All that to say, for me when a company hits a breaking point where I no longer feel comfortable, that's when I leave.
It's an imperfect world and we're humans, don't beat yourself up to much about this stuff.
The only quibble I would make with this is that if you are doing what makes sense, you shouldn't beat yourself up about it.
I've been a U.S. citizen my whole life, and my country has engaged in many wars I find reprehensible.
Should I have renounced my citizenship? No. It's my country, no more or less than theirs.
Is there no alternative to Walmart? The alternative they closed for me was mine. I want it back, but meanwhile I have to live. It's not wrong to choose to live.
How this relates to substack is of course still a matter for debate: there _are_ alternatives. But each of the alternatives I've found is (a lot) more work and has less reach, as far as I can tell.
Of the lot of them, Patreon is probably the best, but they seem to be wandering down the enshittification highway, so we'll see.
it's not that complicated
andrew tate is a piece of shit
that substack platforms him is repugnant enough for many people that they just won't use substack
some won't care. well, fuck them
some worry that the air they breathe contains some molecules that were once also breathed by stalin, so they'll stop breathing. yeah these people are a bit much: you follow coherent connections, and apply pressure where it is worth it
it's a balance in life, always
@benroyce @abhayakara @TheStoneDonkey
no perfect answer but imo "connections" is not enough. this is what most of the fedi gets wrong re refusing to federate with servers with users with bad opinions. moderate unwanted tagging harshly like we do spam, but allow chosen connections like we do browsing.
more meaningful concerns are funding and promotion. Substack both has a financial relationship and chooses to spread the ideas of shitty people. avoiding paying taxes for wars would be nice.
@wjmaggos @abhayakara @TheStoneDonkey
william you're responding to an account that purposefully seeks out, mocks, and goads vatniks into saying things i can report them on to get them suspended
nuke all vatnik accounts
and any server that won't nuke them, nuke the server
period
it's not "bad opinions" william
it's malicious assholes vomiting kremlin lies for ethnofascism and imperialism
someone who says "avoiding paying taxes for wars would be nice" should be able to get behind that need
@benroyce @abhayakara @TheStoneDonkey
we strongly disagree re doing this but we both know this. probably not worth debating it again.
@wjmaggos @abhayakara @TheStoneDonkey
indeed i consider your position naive at best
bigots and prideful ignorants have zero place on the fediverse
any server that won't act on them needs to be excised from the fediverse
i cannot fathom why you don't understand that this imperative is the bedrock of the ethos of a community you enjoy being part of, while not understanding what it takes to protect that community
if shitwits want to vomit their hate somewhere, they have twitter. fuck them
@benroyce @abhayakara @TheStoneDonkey
the fedi should be as open as the internet and as protective as email with spam blocking software. this best balances interactions we each decide we want with helping everyone avoid those they don't want. my community includes my family members who have opinions I hate. your prescription is a very small fedi that feeds groupthink. see how Dems and the further left vehemently disagree re Gaza and so many other issues.
@wjmaggos @abhayakara @TheStoneDonkey
if you define excluding bigoty as "groupthink" i am disgusted
and fuck your family member
you want to have fruitless discussions with racist uncle at the dinner table have it
not here
your "standard" will not apply to the fediverse. your "standard" fucking sucks. it's a gateway for bad faith hateful sadism
that you don't understand that is shameful
we're not having it
you need to make peace with this william: you're not going to win this argument
@benroyce I'm not going to engage with someone who engages this way. Enjoy your stay on the fediverse.
:( he's usually less aggressive in arguing this view.
except "bad people" do change and I have had information shared with me by them that corrected my misunderstandings. doesn't your electoral strategy involve voting in the general for people we may find repugnant but still better than the other person who would otherwise win?
bigots can change but they rarely do
last time we had this discussion you linked to daryl davis as well. i responded as i will now: i admire daryl but daryl is an extreme outlier
we're not here to provide therapy for bigots
people here want to converse without bigotry polluting their timeline
you've decided unilaterally that *your* quixotic goal of curing bigots is what should be here
no
open a twitter account and tilt at windmills there
we're not having it here
that's not my goal. it's a place where we can all talk to whoever we want and avoid who we want. you seem to think you know who should be let in and who shouldn't. haven't I seen many here don't like you supporting voting for Dems cause the party isn't left enough?
because there are ranges of acceptable behavior
if people have disagreements about politics on the left, this can be great venom and outrage, but it is valid discourse. i can be quite angry with someone, but i have no right to silence them
meanwhile, there is no valid discourse with bigotry. nothing is gained. so silencing their voice is not acceptable, it's preferable
why do you want the fediverse to devolve into pathetic endless useless arguments with hateful morons?
and i know your response already
"there is no valid discourse with bigotry. nothing is gained"
yes, in some rare instances, you can cure a bigot
great!
go do that
twitter is full of these fuckwits
engage some. do your thing. enjoy. i wish you great success
but you will not unilaterally decide against the opinion of the fediverse that this place is going to be polluted with their endless evil stupid bad faith nonsense, whatever noble goal you have
how does them posting here pollute anything if you never get tagged (we should moderate hard for unwanted tagging and block servers that allow their users to do that) or the people you follow never boost it? the magic of no algos. the web is full of hateful websites we'll never see etc.
my family members should be able to be here, seeing the lefty stuff I boost that might change their opinions over time. not stuck in places with algos that reinforce misinfo and hate etc.
@wjmaggos @benroyce @TheStoneDonkey
Spam blocking software is a _really_ bad model. I not want that here. Free speech has to be balanced with consent. If I do not consent to listen to some asshole spew hatred, I should be able to avoid hearing that.
Anti-spam doesn't accomplish this, because it's porous: assholes can keep changing their identity to get past the filter.
I should be able to simply say "no, I don't want to hear from random strangers." That's not anti-spam. That's consent.
@abhayakara @benroyce @TheStoneDonkey
I don't understand. I'm a random stranger to you. assuming that's in place, how do you ever decide to see my reply without ever seeing it?
I use spam as an example because imo fedi is like browsing plus email. we want free choice to see what we want but also want help with unwanted intrusions.
yes the jerks can switch servers which is why servers should also be able to block servers that don't try to prevent their server from being used this way.
i am not sure how to respond to this because you're not accurately depicting what bigots do
bigots do not play nice
they don't sit in their corner and play pattycake with each other, they reply guy to trans people, black people, etc
if you can promise me we can let bigots on the fediverse and they will somehow respect what they don't respect (if they could, they wouldn't be bigots in the first place) then you win this argument
but you lose it, because bigots are bigots
not all the people that you call bigots because of their opinions or posting what you consider misinfo, would intentionally bother people if given the chance. the former should be welcome here, the latter should not be.
it's hard for me to believe everyone doesn't have experience with people like this, who believe stuff that seems crazy/evil but also would never intentionally bother others. who would go out of their way to help a stranger. but they are anti trans etc.
Why do they need to be _here_? Why can't they be on their own instance that we don't federate with? Is it wrong for me to want to be able to read my site feed without being triggered? For wanting neighbors that I like?
I have "family" (not actual family, but effectively) who are MAGA. I don't want to not be in touch with them at all, but I really don't want to have to listen to them spew.
so don't follow them. you're not going to see their posts based on who you follow. my question is why do we have to block servers cause people like your "family" is on there? why do we have to make sure someone on your server can't see what they post?
not federating means deciding for many others who can communicate, when having no algos does so much of this work. we browse freely and avoid shitty sites without our browser having such limits. decentralization works.
you're describing a subset of bigots who aren't in your face with their bigotry? ok. i'm certain there's such people on the fediverse already. but since they don't speak their bigotry, we'll never know. so... what's the point?
the issue, which you continually dance around, is that bigots reply guy and harass. if you can't agree such accounts need to be nuked from orbit, i don't know what to say to you, because you don't seem to understand a genuine and real problem
if they harass, get rid of them. we agree. but you're saying if you see them say something nice about Putin etc where nobody is tagged (or maybe you goaded them into the conversation), they gotta go too. I disagree with that.
i have a feeling that you don't quite fully grasp what bigotry is
bigotry is disrespect
it's not some difference of opinion that can be argued with. the disrespect of others because they are a woman, or black, or muslim, or trans, or gay, or disabled, etc, is the essence of bigotry
so to say someone with such disrespect, will then somehow magically be respectful on the fediverse, is absurd
you want to assert they can coexist here, and won't do what bigots always do
is it bigoted to advocate for lesser evil candidates?
@wjmaggos@liberal.city @benroyce@mastodon.social @abhayakara@mastodon.nl some people on fedi have a control freak fetish and simply cannot handle that some people are not super pro censorship tbh.
but imo there's a lot of people who would never reply "die slur" but also never push back on others who do that. they either support that secretly or are cowards. a big fedi requires those people to speak up. we can either have censorship by blocking or harassing till people leave etc. both are a problem.
The problem has always been that the definition of who is "right" shifts in any culture (hence the "overton window") and in creating gates you will eventually find yourself on the wrong side of the gate you created.
"Are we going to palliate and excuse a palpable and flagrant outrage on the right of speech, by implying that only a particular description of persons should exercise that right?
Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down.
To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker."
- A Plea for Free Speech in Boston (1860), Frederick Douglass
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say someone posts some fuckwit anti-trans bigotry
and say i'm a trans person
and i come across that stupid hate organically, as people do on the fediverse
a trans person in a noose, something about trans people needing to die, etc
why is that event ok to you?
why do you have this concern for some contrived bullshit "need" for a bigot to do that more important to you than normal people who just want to enjoy social media without encountering ignorant hate?
you used an extreme example. the trans person is very unlikely to come across that randomly, but they could. like they might browse to such a hate filled website. we don't limit that in browsers.
what's more likely is a trans person clicking over to somebody saying they still watch HP or agree with sports limits. and I get how that could be upsetting. but I'm saying I don't think we should not allow someone who wants to post that without tagging anyone, on the fedi.
what the fuck?
william are you turning into an edgelord?
the issue is bigotry
you know what that is
you think you can do some weak posturing with "well what is bigotry, really, hmmm?" and you think this is going to win you this argument?
it's called topic shifting
it's dishonest william. you're telling me you get my point, you just don't want to admit it
no it's not shifting at all. it's trying to address your argument in a way that might force you to recognize how it would impact something you care about.
lots of Dems win primaries even tho they are bad on lots of issues we care about, and in choosing to support them over the GOP, we are said to not care enough about those issues. people tell us they just can't vote for them cause of their position on the issue. that it's hurtful others could overlook that kind of hate.
@wjmaggos@liberal.city @benroyce@mastodon.social @abhayakara@mastodon.nl you have 2 extremes on fedi and only one extreme is kept "in check" (by having everyone pretend they dont exist, even when they are much bigger than most want to admit), the other extreme makes the rules to a degree where everyone is constantly on eggshells. fedi is not kind to moderates or centrists because of this dynamic.
@wjmaggos@liberal.city @benroyce@mastodon.social @abhayakara@mastodon.nl keep in mind, giving users a choice who they want to follow has always been the ethos of the fediverse, just not mastodon. (ever). These are 2 distinct networks as a result. Mastodon is a LOT smaller than they think they are in the grand scheme of things.
so what are you advocating? I think both should compromise. on one side, block less. on the other, police harassment more.
screenshots of stupid bigotry
@wjmaggos @jeff@mk.magicka.org @abhayakara
william, you're responding thoughtfully to an account that is suspended on mastodon.social so i wormed my way around that and spent 30 seconds viewing some comments from this, uh, esteemed individual
you want this fucking shit free and clear on the fediverse?
you really do?
you *really* do?!
sensitive media
sensitive media
screenshots of stupid bigotry
I don't. thanks for pointing it out.
well then what are we even arguing about
if you agree such bigoted shit shouldn't be in the free and clear, we agree. because that's all i've been arguing about
cause we shouldn't defederate a server for hosting this. like we wouldn't demand browsers be unable to visit a blog that posted this.
@wjmaggos@liberal.city @benroyce@mastodon.social @abhayakara@mastodon.nl That's a fair request tbh and that's why it'll never happen. Too much tribalism in this whole thing.
I don't think this problem has a solution given the status quo because one of the extremes is not kept on a leash since they are "oppressed" or something. Things will degrade into purity test spirals as they always do and the rest of the network will continue to federate without them like they've always have (and always will).
do you ever tell people not to post the die slur shit cause you can see here that myself and some others are vocal about the excessive censorship? and it's not without cost.
if a server is unresponsive on nuking an account like the one we both agree shouldn't be here (or worse, argues for preserving the account), what happens is the bigots notice and pile on that server and it becomes a metastasizing cancer
you *have* to suspend the server
again it's about what a bigot is:
they have a need to be disrespectful. you can't separate their need to reply guy and harass from what it means to be a bigot
give them a crack in, they will pile in
maybe cancer is a good term. people can live with them sometimes and they don't spread. you keep arguing there's no difference between the people with the very bad views and the people who harass. I disagree. not sure much more can be said.
@wjmaggos@liberal.city @benroyce@mastodon.social @abhayakara@mastodon.nl i mean it's not like they'd ever listen to anyone that says that you shouldn't say slurs. it's basically pointless to try and tame them, i just mute them and get on with my life. single user instances give users the ultimate control over their feed after all.
it's not saying slurs, it's unwanted tagging. with slurs or anything else that's in bad faith. I'm fighting the fight here so I want you to fight the fight there. you can't complain about our censorship and do nothing on your side.
the people I'm trying to convince to be less censorious need to see servers with opinions they dislike, who take a vocal hard line against harassment. then making the argument for bridging the divide becomes more supportable.
@wjmaggos @jeff@mk.magicka.org @abhayakara
there is always a cost
if you are too lenient you get evil bigots encouraging the hanging of trans people
if you are too excessive you ban honest ignorants fresh out of the fox news zombie bubble saying vaccines don't work, when a little education would have sufficed
you're not arguing for better, you're arguing for erring on leniency
and i'm arguing for erring on harshness
let the honest ignorant come back when they figure out vaccines work
I wish there was a "we love Fox news" boomer server. not 4chan people but I really like the flag people. I'd hope you join me in advocating it not be blocked.
@wjmaggos@liberal.city @benroyce@mastodon.social @abhayakara@mastodon.nl I've been on fedi for basically a decade, I can't say that I can see this divide ever being bridged. It long ago turned into a long term ecosystem sustainability contest, and free open federation won long ago, hence the escalation from the pro censor people as of late. They will continue to infight and grow smaller over time, and the rest of the network grows as people are cast out. It's simple math at play, and I don't think that adding syndicated blocklists will be as powerful as they hope tbh.
well definitely keep complaining about my side and doing nothing yourself.
Trump is president and Mamdani is mayor of NYC. the world is weird.
we do have that
it's called truth social. it's a mastodon server (heavily modified now)
you want to federate with truth social?
if they wouldn't harass people here, absolutely.
I think there's a ton of Fox News viewers who would never ever tag a minority with mean shit, but go on and on about minorities ruining the country. I want them to follow their nephew here and see their nephew's minority friend being awesome.
people always get better the less we live in bubbles.
naivete!
william: bigots harass
it is essential to what it means to be a bigot. their entire identity depends upon seeing someone else as inferior, and making a point of demonstrating that "inferiority" according to their dimwit sadism
you want to talk about a theoretical non harassing bigot?
what?
william, this entire line of thought is absurdity, almost comedic
you essentially do not understand what a bigot is
we will not unleash these turds onto the fediverse
"people always get better the less we live in bubbles"
the point of the fediverse is not to serve as therapy for bigots!
let them get better on their own, if they even can (big doubt), and keep their hateful ignorant shit away from us
*that* is job #1
you want to follow them to where the shitwits reside and vomit their hate and "cure" them? go for it
not here
a group of servers that choose to federate with each other
on what criteria?
any criteria they want
if you disagree with the current criteria, you may start your own fediverse of servers who think it's worth the effort to provide therapy for bigots
go for it
whatever may be, may be
william:
you seem to like quixotic quests
you think bigots can be reasoned with
and you think you're going to redefine the fedi as bigot-tolerant for the purposes of their therapy
imo it's an attention layer for the open web. nothing else can do that democratically.
done for today with you calling me a therapist for bigots.
well then let it proceed democratically
"the vote tally on william maggos's idea to allow bigots on the fediverse for the sake of their therapy (am i wrong? what are you trying to say if i got it wrong)"
...
"vote tally is in, it's 5,283,199 nay, 3,264 yea"
I brought up Mr Davis and Mrs Phelps only to refute your argument that bigots can't change. Then I also tried to point out that not all bigots are harassers. I also argued that you too have views that others on the left wish they could never stumble upon here.
Somehow you turned all that into me believing this place is for therapy for bigots. I do not.
I believe this place can realize a marketplace of ideas vision but to do so, it must be as inclusive as possible.
and it's possible we win the lottery
and it's possible for drunk drivers to not get in car accidents
but we don't depend upon either possibility, because obviously they aren't what tends to happen
1. bigots don't change. ok, a few do
2. bigots harass. ok, a few don't
so you're making an assertion of *policy* based on the outliers, the fringe, the unexpected
no
not going to happen
you simply have a very naive, quixotic approach to the problem of bigotry
again, I am not arguing that the fedi can solve bigotry. but that there's a larger vision that is really just an attempted improvement on what humans do. advance culture and civics through conversation and sharing the best info, ideas and art of others. social media, mostly through the boost, helps us do that faster. decentralization removes the dominant influence of big money in how that flows.
we didn't need to end bigotry first to make this work IRL. same here.
many share your more closed vision of fedi. imo those places are also needed but this tech allows more than that. as long as we work to prevent the harassment that drives people to not participate, just like IRL, we can have work go worldwide viral among people who would vehemently disagree on lots of other issues. that's not possible if we screen for bigotry. people in different countries might agree on ending war but disagree on so much else. see MTG on Epstein.
ah
you're a true believer in the marketplace of ideas
william: take a person of malicious intent
you agree they exist right?
their goal is to harass, cajole, lie, waste time, change the topic, be as bad faith as possible, etc
the marketplace of ideas is fucking bullshit when you're dealing with bigots
the bigot's foundational sentiment is sadism and disrespect
there is no such thing as constructive conversations with them
you simply exclude the pieces of shit
constructive convos are had with such people all the time in public forums. you just enforce rules of decorum and then they follow those rules out of self interest all the time. they have a sidewalk they need fixed and while they want to call the elected officials horrible names to their face, they go to the public meeting and stay focused on what they need to get it done. we don't have to care what they post when nobody is tagged, like we don't care how they talk elsewhere.
bigotry is the enemy of the free exchange of ideas
excluding bigots increases freedom
this may feel alien to you, because you have an invalid view of what a bigot is, and what they do
they poison conversations and harass because someone is a woman, black, gay, trans, muslim, blind, etc. they want to make the targets of their hate have as miserable an experience as possible until they leave the conversation
*that* is the enemy of the marketplace of ideas
Hey this is still going, fun.
So this conversation deepens in stupidity mostly because of this "what is a bigot" thing.
"bigot" here is now becoming a magic bad word like voldemort and it's really making the conversation stupid.
Smarter: What makes someone "unnacceptable" or "bannable"
Use policy or something clearly defined, instead of big scary words
i see i see
because some people are labeled bigots who aren't, therefore the problem of actual bigotry doesn't exist!
amazing!
what a thunderbolt of realization
or maybe just a weak topic shift
😂
'What makes someone "unnacceptable" or "bannable"'
howabout... bigotry
because somebody somewhere you ran into in a random thread doesn't know what that is, we can't use the obvious clear definition of what that is?
come on!
I have absolutely no clue what you were trying to say here but lets try this:
Yes, dangerous bigots exist.
But it seems like people like you want to remove them based on like vibes or something.
Nope. Grown-up working systems (like the fediverse) need grown-up methods that look like policy to do this effectively.
And as I have seen, not doing this is what fucks the fediverse up
No sir, I am actually directly referencing behavior I've witnessed with e.g. "the bad place/space" whatever people, which I'm presuming is a thing all over this place. Could be wrong.
Likely formerly bullied nerds wielding banhammers all over the place. Again, glad if it's cathartic but not good for making this place good.
Policy, not vibes
absolutely there are losers going around yelling "bigotry!" against words that are not bigotry. i've seen that shit myself
and?
meaning what?
when someone says something that you yourself would say "now that's some fucking bigotry" we can't do anything about it because losers exist somewhere?
No, I do what I would do in real life which is to respond like a *grownup* and not a like catty sorority person.
"Okay, what is our *policy* on speech? Does what they are doing fall under genuinely harmful speech or is this merely objectionable?"
I think what you have is what the kids call "privilege," Black man pushing 50 here and I've never just been able to wave a magic want and say BYE BYE BAD GUYS. That ain't how life works, and doing that here is corny.
So what you're saying is we should allow bigotry here because you deal with bigotry, unfortunately, in real life?
'No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, or casteism.
Transphobic behavior such as intentional misgendering and deadnaming is strictly prohibited. Promotion of "conversion therapy" is strictly prohibited. Criticism of governments and religions is permissible unless being used as a proxy for discrimination.'
Is this acceptable to you?
that's a copy paste of the terms for using mastodon.social. they describe bigotry
you don't have to like those terms. so you can find some other absolutely lovely server where any bigot can join, since that's apparently really important to you
interesting that
so are we done? anything else i can help you with?
you want to go on with this joke that you met some dingbats yelling "BIGOTRY!" at something that wasn't bigotry at all, and that i am somehow their personal spokesman?
my position is that servers should be able to limit their membership any way they wish. but the norm should be that servers federate with other servers unless that server allows their users to harass users on other servers. basically unwanted tagging.
both of these policies are about the betterment of the network and promoting growth. avoiding harassment is obvious, but one should also have the sense that they can join the network as a user or server and reach almost everyone.