Discussion
A developer in Korea just built a Fediverse server that runs directly on CloudFlare.
/r/fediverse users responded:
"this is cancer"
"you are a horrible person"
???
Can you please help me with a genuine question: what would make the #Fediverse a more welcoming place?
Yes, humans are just grumpy sometimes. But a real solution can't just be more HOA members reading the rules at the door.
What do YOU think would make a difference here?
@benpate i wrote a piece on why i stopped hosting a server here https://gfsc.community/why-we-discontinued-our-mastodon-server/
@benpate So, my main takeaway from this is that so many of us are having fun on the Fediverse, we forget to participate in conversations *outside* the Fediverse, like on Reddit.
But that's the point where new people are finding us. The conversations about the Fediverse happening inside siloed social networks are the threshold people have to cross to get here.
We should be on the other side, welcoming them.
Thanks for the reminder. I just joined /r/fediverse and I'll try to help.
@benpate Here's the thread for those who want to participate:
@golemwire @benpate interesting angle
Great points, thank you :)
Isolation breeds extremism (in either political direction) and the Fediverse does represent a certain amount of isolation.
@benpate A server that runs directly on Cloudflare sounds amazing to me. I’m currently running this instance through a Cloudflare tunnel (using GoToSocial on my NAS at home).
Me too. Inadvertently.
I’m on the Digital Ocean app platform, that automaticallly hosts everything behind CloudFlare.
I can understand people wanting to avoid being locked in to a specific platform. But to me, the coolest thing about this project is that it shows that you can host something completely “serverless” with Javascript.
Once we have that, how long is it until someone makes an open source CloudFlare-compatible environment?
Where will the haters be then?
Hi @benpate,
somehow I don't buy embracing a #monopoly goes well with 'diverse' an in #fediverse. But that's just my take.
On the surface, this makes a lot of sense.
But consider: “distributed” doesn’t mean “distributed, but only on small ISPs”
I say Fedi everywhere - even on the “bad” platforms. If it gives people the chance to learn about the Fediverse, it’s a win.
-
More importantly: you’re welcome to disagree, ignore my posts, or even block me if you don’t agree with my choices.
But the haters do damage to the Fediverse when they escalate from blocks to attacks and insults.
this is really the heart of the problem: a small number of very loud people see themselves as judges of what the "fediverse" means, or "federated" or "diverse". and i don't accept their authority.
and i do think the loudest are destroying the fediverse. i worry that when they're done, the fediverse will be perfectly in agreement on all "principles" and there will be like 23 people on it.
it was pointed out elsewhere on this thread that many of the loudest see themselves as refugees from corporate social media, and don't want to see the fediverse become like that. i get that—it's literally why i'm here. but i still don't think the fediverse needs their stewardship!
Yeah, you’re spot on. And identifying as victim/refugees probably helps fuel their behavior.
I think we’ve all bumped into them here. And hey, haters get to have opinions, too.
I just try to identify them quickly, then mute or block liberally.
How do you handle them? Any suggestions?
Hi @benpate
I totally agree to keep manners to keep controversial arguments enjoyable.
No room for hate.
You may hear me mad about something as soon as I understand what’s the issue 😅
The compulsion of some #mastodon #fediverse people to make negative comments and scolds about anything they can is awful and it runs new people away
I think there needs to be explicit encouragement in mastodon and the overall fediverse to be kind, helpful, welcoming, friendly, nonjudgmental, and to accept that other people can make their own choices on the fediverse and a negative comment isn't necessary or nice
Being kind and friendly and getting to know different people feels good friends
Shouldn't social networks be fun and... social ?
@frxe @benpate IMO the uber-scolds in the Mastodon Imperial Core have been losing clout as the network continues to grow around them.
however, it's still very important that people who love fedi (as opposed to The Mastodon Network™) continue working toward a few goals:
1. decrease median server size so as to de-emphasize fediblock drama
2. continue attracting cool misfits who aren't obsessed with purity spirals and moral righteousness
3. decrease the % of ActivityPub users on Mastodon.
deutrino I strongly believe we need more interest-based websites on the network. so many of the issues, from where I sit, come from the idea that the network is the attraction, but then you have no real reason for people to choose one site vs another, and no real sense of community, and no sense of responsibility to anything.
Everyone here already ends up a little mercenary, and you can’t tell anyone new why they should sign up, nor where. And I blame Mastodon’s designers for this, with their insistence on de-centering the Local feed and not making theming easy. they not only centre the network, but they frame the local website as a generic dumb terminal for accessing “Mastodon”.
deutrino I strongly believe we need more interest-based websites on the network. so many of the issues, from where I sit, come from the idea that the network is the attraction, but then you have no real reason for people to choose one site vs another, and no real sense of community, and no sense of responsibility to anything.
Everyone here already ends up a little mercenary, and you can’t tell anyone new why they should sign up, nor where. And I blame Mastodon’s designers for this, with their insistence on de-centering the Local feed and not making theming easy. they not only centre the network, but they frame the local website as a generic dumb terminal for accessing “Mastodon”.
@frxe @benpate beyond that... I instance-block the most toxic servers on my various accounts and my timelines are much better for it. especially once I became willing to throw a few babies out with the bathwater, as there are one or two sizable one where blocking results in collateral damage.
that doesn't help noobs, though, so maybe a shared blocklist for servers which don't necessarily break rules but have toxic admin and/or users is in order. good luck getting mass adoption though.
@benpate i can think of worse companies to host with tbh. Funnily enough these same people probably don't get that a significant portion of the fediverse is actually behind cloudflare's CDNs.
I think these "do as I say" holier than thou types are the bane of the decentralised web. Like, if I wanted to drive people away from open social projects, that's exactly how I'd do it: hire a small group of people to consistently be assholes to other's. It's like 101 from the CIA field guide to sabotage 🚩
Yeah, I'm noticing that more and more. Nothing is able to pass the purity tests. Nobody is good enough. So, doing ANYTHING means we're going to berate you for it.
I try to avoid going straight to the conspiracy theories, but it makes a lot of sense. No better way to discredit something than "false flag"
Then those brave, anonymous redditors are welcome to build their own versions of autonomy.
But it's arrogant to assume that THEIR way is the ONLY way.
What's worse for the Fediverse? A niche project that uses tech that a few people don't like? Or a reputation as an unwelcoming place where people will insult your work for not agreeing with their *specific* ideologies?
Right. A lot of people are in fedi to escape surveillance capitalism, and (justifiably IMHO) see Cloudflare as a surveillance capitalism company. And a lot of people in fedi are anti-fascist, and so don't like Cloudflare funding projects like Ladybird or Omarchy. And a lot of people see LLMs -- or more generally "AI" as a political project -- as reinforcing fascism and having huge ethical issues.
The strong pushback is antibodies. Cloudflare dropped wildebeest at least in part because there were blocklists going around that defederated all wildebeest instances. Gab gave up on federation because the pushback was so strong; Truth Social didn't even try.
True, it's very hit-or-miss just what sparks the antibodies. And, opinions differ: plenty of people here think the path to fedi's success is to be friendly to surveillance capitalism companies, or don't think of Ladybird and Omarchy as fascist aligned, or don't think it matters that Cloudflare is funding them. It' complex! But, these are the kinds of complexities people have to deal with if they want to navigate fedi.
So @benpate and @scottjenson , I don't think you're going to change that culture -- and you should really think about what message you're sending when you say you want to try.
There's two separate issues:
1. Is {CloudFlare or AI} a {good or bad} thing that we {should or shouldn't} use?
2. How to we treat people who disagree with us on point 1?
In any group, there will be disagreements. How we handle those determines if we're functioning adults or not.
Block people? Sure.
Block instances? Sure.
Berate people who build stuff? Nope.
You can treat people however you want. But I don't think you're going to have a lot of success convincing people who see Cloudflare as pro-fascist saying they should treat fascist supporters more politiely. They're just going to read your third line as
"Breate people trying to bring fascism into fedi? Nope"
EDIT: rephrased my paraphrase
Let's pretend CloudFlare was full-on, 100% "Hitler-loving Nazis"
Arguing with them online is STILL not the answer. Nazis LOVE that stuff.
And you're not helping by trashing someone with one foot in the door, who doesn't know just how bad they are. You're just pushing them closer to the Nazis.
Vitriolic voices, even for a just cause, are not helping the Fediverse. So I think we could build trust systems that take megaphones away from the trolls.
The way we deliver a message can be more important than the words themselves.
In cult-deprogramming, when someone is teetering on the edge of the cult, getting shunned by their community only pushes them deeper into the cult.
This negative online behavior radicalizes people AWAY from the "shun-ers" and into the arms of the cult. So if you want to keep someone away from Nazis, don't yell at them for asking about swastikas.
@benpate @rakoo @jdp23 @scottjenson @thisismissem Is your actual goal here to keep fascists out? If not, what is your actual goal here?
My actual goal here is to help grow the Fediverse, in a positive, sustainable way. I believe it should be an inclusive place for everyone, which means a place without purity tests.
So go punch Nazis.
Kick them where their nuts should be.
But HOW you punch Nazis is important.
People are watching, and deciding if they want to participate in this community based on how we behave.
And we could be more welcoming than we are today.
That's really the core difference of opinion. The "Big Fedi" view is that
Everyone on the planet should have an account on the fediverse (even Nazis, racists, transphobes, white supremacists, hate groups who target people of color, LGBTQIA2S+ people, and other marginalized communities). It will make the internet better and the world better (if Nazis et al are on the fediverse, as opposed to trying to keep them off)
From that perspective, "purity tests" like "is somebody trying to bring fascist technology here" are certainly a barrier. The same is true with other "purity tests" like whethre somebody is willing to use the right pronouns, does somebody advocate harssment of trans people, etc etc etc. As the Big Fedi view says
"It’s more important to bring good people to the fediverse than to keep (Nazis, facists, transphobes, white supremacists, hate groups who target people of color, LGBTQIA2S+ people and other marginalized communities) bad people off it. There may be some bad people, too, but we’ll (somehow come up with a way to) manage them (even though today's fediverse is unsafe by design and unsafe by default and most instances can't manage the bad people who are there today, so it's likely to get a lot worse rather than better as things get bigger)"
But not everybody sees it that way. A lot of people -- including me -- don't want fascists, racists, anti-LGBTQIA2S+ bigots etc here, even if that leads to a smaller fedi in the short term. In fact, since there are so many other social networks that already welcome fascists, racists, anti-LGBTQIA2S+ bigots, etc, I'd argue that the best approach to growing fedi sustainably is to be an alternative -- because there aren't a lot of others.
But okay, you're far from the only person with the "Big Fedi" view.i My point in this thread is that the rest of us aren't going to shut up about it. It's not going to be a welcoming place to people advocating for fascist technology and surveillance capitalism -- even if they don't realize what they're doing.
So if you want to grow fedi in a positive sustainable way, you're wasting your time trying to convince people here to be more welcoming to technology they see as problematic, whether it's Cloudflare, LLMs, or Meta.
Instead -- and whether or not you personally think fedi should resist fascism (etc), or however you personally think is the best way to keep the fascists (etc) out
spread the word that there are a lot of people here who do want to keep fascists (etc) out of fedi,
try to set expectations for developers leveraging surveillance captitalism technology that they're likely to be greeted harshly
encourage developers to keep fedi's long-standing cultural norms in mind and get feedback on what they're doing before just showing up
EDIT: whoops, I posted this before I saw @davidgerard''s response here, with some very good points including this:
"To get back to the start of the thread, you do understand that Cloudflare are funding straight up fascist projects - I urge you to read the shit DHH is posting these days before making a squeak claiming otherwise - and that's enough reason why objecting loud and often and widely fediblocking Cloudflare's fedi service is a social good? Remembering that Cloudflare's previous greatest hit was protecting KiwiFarms."
@jdp23 @benpate @davidgerard @rakoo @thisismissem
> fedi's long-standing cultural norms
i reject your claim that you (or anyone, honestly) have any authority in this area. and that's really the core issue in this thread. regardless of ideology, some people on the fediverse feel like they have authority to set the standards of the fediverse. they are very loud about it. many are even hostile.
what's really annoying about this thread is that no one here wants fascists on the fediverse. you've all said exactly that. this thread isn't about fascism. it's about bullying.
Culture change is hard. Sooooo many people got here "first" and think their claim is the only correct one. Has always been thus ...
One thing I can think of is remind people that r/fediverse is not exactly the place where "the fediverse" is developed, managed, or happening.
Then follow this dev and see what is up! I care much more that the software and the instance are acting like decent neighbours than I do about the infra its hosted on.
Culture change is hard. Sooooo many people got here "first" and think their claim is the only correct one. Has always been thus ...
One thing I can think of is remind people that r/fediverse is not exactly the place where "the fediverse" is developed, managed, or happening.
Then follow this dev and see what is up! I care much more that the software and the instance are acting like decent neighbours than I do about the infra its hosted on.
Agreed :)
I’m a software developer, not a social scientist. And though my bias is to turn everything into a technical problem, I doubt there’s a way to “change culture” AND give people freedom at the same time.
I’m on the hunt for tools that make it easy to behave like a functioning adult who’s gone to therapy, and make it hard to behave like a goblin with a megaphone.
Agreed :)
I’m a software developer, not a social scientist. And though my bias is to turn everything into a technical problem, I doubt there’s a way to “change culture” AND give people freedom at the same time.
I’m on the hunt for tools that make it easy to behave like a functioning adult who’s gone to therapy, and make it hard to behave like a goblin with a megaphone.
@johannab @benpate @thisismissem I've been fighting this in my own small way for a while now. Whether it's culture policing or yelling at anyone that dares use the word LLM (even in a neutral way), there are people here that are making it their mission to eject the heathens.
My hope is that it really is just a small number and if enough people support posters when they see this behavior, they'll realize they'd just be better off just unfollowing.
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