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@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.