Post · bonfire.cafe

https://social.growyourown.services/@FediTips/116053369873929466

@fedilore@mastodon.social · yesterday

Working through this Fedi Tips thread, because there's a few interesting ideas here:

@FediTips@social.growyourown.services · yesterday

It is depressing if someone experiences hate on here, especially if it puts them off using this place.

I follow people that regularly raise these issues, to hear how bad it is and what the causes are.

Five things seem to come up most often:

- Lack of representation in software design
- Users not being able to control who can reply to their posts
- Moderation being reactive rather than proactive
- Allowlists vs blocklists
- Cultural problems

Let's look closer...

🧵 Thread - Part 1 of 7

https://social.growyourown.services/@FediTips/116053389647659615

@fedilore@mastodon.social replied · yesterday

This idea just kinda sucks.

A lot of Fedi software is made by queer and neurodivergent people.

The reason that GoToSocial and Akkoma and all of the MissKey forks have such cool features and so many great safety tools is because it was made by the people most impacted by online harassment for their own safety.

@fedilore@mastodon.social replied · yesterday

We don't really talk about this, but a lot of the reason that queer and neurodivergent people are able to make so much cool open source software is that they're systematically excluded from the labour market.

It's unreasonable to demand that these extremely vulnerable peoples form committees and are forced to adhere to cishet and neurotypical social norms in order to... do what?

Make software that is less effective at protecting the people the software is designed to protect.

@FediTips@social.growyourown.services replied · yesterday

"It's unreasonable to demand that these extremely vulnerable peoples form committees"

My apologies, that is absolutely not what I was trying to say at all, I've tried to edit the original post to make it clearer.

I was trying to say: FOSS projects have to prioritise due to lots of work, lots of issues and no resources. If vulnerable people are affecting how things are prioritised (either by being devs themselves or listened to by devs) then that could make safety features better.

blazingamr

@blazingamr@universeodon.com replied · 10 hours ago

Maybe you should review your premise in the first place.
What do you mean exactly by 'protecting vulnerable groups'
This is decentralized social media for God's sake!
What are they _and what are you too_? 10 year Olds??
Your line of thinking will quickly produce #Twitter again (before Elon Musk), which was replicated now by #Bluesky. Jack Dorsey himself left Bluesky because of that.
I have a question to you and it's a serious one. Can I call # Muhammad the prophet of Islam a pedophile?
And if I can or cannot on this instance, who decides exactly what I can or cannot say?
If a Muslim complained to you that this remark deeply hurts their feelings _and it sure does for some_, will they be considered a 'vulnerable group'?
I don't really expect a sophisticated answer or anything but I truly want you to contemplate these questions before deciding to act like keyboard superhero and start deciding who gets to express their opinion or not.

@FediTips@social.growyourown.services replied · 7 hours ago

@blazingamr

Did you actually read this thread or the thread it is quoting?

This thread is about representation of vulnerable groups on FOSS development teams. Your reply says *zero* about this topic.

And even if you mean the quoted thread, none of what I wrote in the original thread would restrict what you say on your own server, or restrict how admins run their servers.

You are ranting at me for something I didn't say. Please read stuff before you reply to it.

https://social.growyourown.services/@FediTips/116053409147777228

@fedilore@mastodon.social replied · yesterday

I think this one is mostly harmless, but a bit frustrating?

Reply controls are not real. They don't provide any safety, they just hide posts from the people being harassed.

If you're a big account, I get how this can be convenient.

If you're a small account, this is pretty dangerous. If you don't know that the threats you're facing exist, you can't take steps to protect yourself.

My biggest concern with reply controls is people not understanding how they work.

@FediTips@social.growyourown.services replied · yesterday

I am not a dev but GoToSocial includes reply controls, if I understand correctly they say controls will work if other platforms respect them? If other platforms refuse to respect them or even try to, should servers be federating with such platforms?

In any case, my main point was to raise this as an issue that people experiencing hate bring up. They can control replies on centralised platforms, and they are being put off coming here because they can't control replies here.

@fedilore@mastodon.social replied · yesterday

@FediTips I think reply controls are an issue where it really matters how they're implemented, and that there's a pretty significant amount of knowledge of ActivityPub you should have before you can rely on them for anything more important than an automatic mute.

Reply controls have the same safety problems as quote settings have in Mastodon. They promise a setting that can be intentionally or accidentally bypassed by an instance, and that can also be bypassed by a fedi client.

@FediTips@social.growyourown.services replied · yesterday

I'm not sure how my post came across, but I think we're agreeing?

The point I was trying to make is if vulnerable groups are involved in development then the software tends to be safer.

FOSS usually involves devs having to prioritise due to lack of resources, and the prioritisation can affect safety one way or another.

@fedilore@mastodon.social replied · yesterday

@FediTips Maybe we do agree?

How specifically do you think people should be "involved in development".

@FediTips@social.growyourown.services replied · yesterday

I am not a dev, I've never created a FOSS project, so I'm reluctant to say specifically how development should happen.

I'm suggesting that *at the very least* decisions about what features to prioritise should involve people from vulnerable groups (preferably many different groups as there are different forms of hate).

Ideally the dev team itself should include people from vulnerable groups.

I'm mainly trying to flag this up as an issue that people experiencing hate have raised.

@fedilore@mastodon.social replied · yesterday

@FediTips My replies here are about common safety ideas on Fedi, some of which are good and some of which are bad. None of this is a criticism of you, personally.

If you'd like me to highlight any of your replies to me, I'm happy to do so.