@mekkaokereke

Mekka you have to be my favorite poster on the fediverse

Every post you write makes me think

I take it is as a dear conviction the fediverse must grow. And so at your first sentence I'm feeling antipathy. But by the end of your comment, I'm agreeing with you. You're challenging me in the best of ways

We need growth, but at what cost? And you make me consider the costs. They cannot be hand waved away, as some would do. These costs must be addressed and erased before any growth

@mekkaokereke

Mekka, you say it so well.

@mekkaokereke

A question for the "The #Fediverse doesn't need to grow" crowd:

Do you _want_ commercial platforms to dominate social media around the world - and allow them to manipulate the algorithm in order to promote unchecked #Capitalism, #fascism, and everything else that is currently wrecking the planet? Not to mention handing over sensitive personal information to authoritarian regimes.

I don't see social media going away. But the Fediverse currently represents our best hope of getting away from _commercial_ social media, and thus we need it to grow.

Thus, if you don't want the Fediverse to grow, you want #Meta and #X to win. Unless you have a _better_ noncommercial social media alternative than the Fediverse, in which case I'd love to hear about it!

@mekkaokereke

Old Twitter was _so_ much more diverse than the present Fediverse. Especially if you made a conscious effort to connect with people outside your bubble. Which I did, and I learned _so_ much.

In contrast, the Fediverse is its own bubble. People who hung out in their own bubbles on Old Twitter won't notice much of a difference, even if they believe themselves to be progressive and open-minded. But if you actively tried to cultivate diversity in your own timeline, the difference is brutal.

I used to have no difficulty finding lots of people from Africa, South Asia, and many other regions in the world. And I miss that.

@mekkaokereke
I agree with all of this & SO MUCH this part: "we as a community of people of all backgrounds, have agency to improve Mastodon". It could be better here, if we push it and make it better

IDK if you saw this paper I wrote about harassment here, from the perspective of an individual (not server- or blocklist-level). TLDR: this place has loopholes the size of semi trucks that harassers can exploit, which ofc Black folks have warned about. In case of interest:
https://openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/JoCI/article/view/6644

@mekkaokereke I quit that bird -no regrets.

@mekkaokereke What can I do to make Mastodon safer for black people?

@mekkaokereke I’m a white cismale and the thought of millions of genuine non-subversive twitterfacebook people here makes me puke in my mouth

@mekkaokereke This. 💯

@mekkaokereke Most excellent concept and post. My spouse is in frequent skirmishes on Facebook with RW don’t-know -their-ass-from-their-elbow minions shouting about Humpty’s rapture. “Why do you bother?” I ask, “come join me in the peace of the reverse” I smile. 😊

@mekkaokereke

I've spent time at r/Mastodon and r/Fediverse on reddit.

My general observation is that the Fediverse, like Linux, demands that you learn how to use it.

That little extra effort is a bridge too far for most people.

So I think the Fediverse is self-filtering... now.

It's an odd paradox that, if it gets more user-friendly, the enshittification levels will increase because more knee biters will show up.

@mekkaokereke I have been here a long time, long before the mass exodus from Twitter and the big boom of new users on the fediverse. There has been an echoing refrain from the beginning which is that the fediverse doesn’t work for black people.

It triggers so much…I don’t know…everything. Guilt, shame, anger, whatever. It’s a rainbow of emotions every time someone posts something about it.

But then that’s it.

Bit of shame and anger and on to the next thing.

“Boost Black voices, I did my part.”

I see so few people who seem to genuinely want to do the work to understand what that *means* when someone says that the fediverse doesn’t work for them and it’s maddening. It feels like a very real reflection of reality most of the time though. Not at all in a good way.

@mekkaokereke We need a superblock. i.e. Block this account on my personal deny list, and also nominate it for inclusion on these shared deny list subscriptions:
[X] Racist (@haters@fubu.party)
[ ] Sexist (@misogyny@gurl.club)
[ ] Horny on Main (@nsfw@super.gay)
[X] Fascist (@thefash@antifa.io)
[ ] Yucks Others' Yums (@downers@funhouse.lol)
[ ] Fedi HOA (@squidwards@nerdwords.net)
[ ] AI Scraperbot (@ai@opsec.tech)
[X] Replyguy--Creepy (@stalkers@furry.win)
[ ] Plagiarist (@stealers@dadjoke.org)

There are Mastodon instances that operate on an allowlist-only basis. While that can stave off a lot of harassment, it's got obvious downsides too, unless maybe you can expand the network of allowed instances to sufficient size. But could we use filtering to screen out harmful posts (or even just content a given instance chooses to disallow) in a more fine-grained way? It always feels like there's an enormous void in the tools we have available for this sort of moderation, just begging for someone to develop a better way.

Until then, I guess we all get to work at changing things culturally here.

@mekkaokereke

@mekkaokereke It's more than fine if changing Mastodon (or anything else) to increase Black safety disrupts the experiences of people who don't care about Black people

@mekkaokereke 💯 I am surprised at the pushback but I guess I shouldn't be. If you stand for the ideals of the fediverse I don't see how you'd be against more users.

@mekkaokereke That’s a super clear, well laid reasoning.

@mekkaokereke From the technical point of view - what features could enhance safety? What can be added or is there and need to be made more user-friendly so people can feel safer?

Is the problem the federation? The lack of control or knowledge to block users / servers / hashtags? That anyone can be online on multiple servers? That mods do not do their moderating tasks?

I read several toots saying "Mastodon isn't safe for us", but I haven't heard yet of what features need to improve. And I'd really like to know!

@mekkaokereke
There seem to be at least two opposing views on what ‚safety‘ should mean in the fediverse that I’ve seen.
1) being able to control who can see and comment on one’s posts
2) being able see and point out posts that attack one

These two seem to collide.

How do you see this?

This is an honest question - no trolling.

@mekkaokereke My take is: If a thing works to connect the hyper-marginalised in a good way, then it'll also work for me, the privilieged white male hetero GenX German. Except that my experience is going to be a lot more interesting and insightful by having folks NOT like me around.

So why would I ever be against that?

Give us everything that will help black, trans, neurodivergent and everyone else to feel welcome and safe!

@mekkaokereke
I'm with you. Would love to see it. I wonder if maybe Mastodon isn't the software platform to get what's needed done. I keep looking at Bonfire and wondering if something modular like that isn't a better place to experiment with moderation, trust, and safety features.

@mekkaokereke plus there’s the inherit problem of being an open protocol allowing anyone to harass. Every now and then a Nazi will pick up one of my posts, boost it, and then I’m just inundated with Nazis that I have to clean up from a variety of instances they prop up to do these sorts of things after their old ones get more widely blocked.

The fact that there can be no subscribed to, dynamic blocklist is a safety issue in of itself, and an impediment towards wider adaption.