Nora, tech aspect on Nostr: We are never going to find a social media platform that has only the "right" people ...
We are never going to find a social media platform that has only the "right" people on it. We cannot restrict the Web to only the people we agree with, who never say anything that makes us feel bad, who don't hold any beliefs we find odious.
Instead, we have to build tools that allow people to define the space they exist in, protect their peace to the extent they want to, and build communities - and we need accept that people we dislike, even people who hold racist or transphobic beliefs or support evil politicians or states, will also be able to use those tools, and build them to mitigate the harm bad actors can cause.
Right now, we have a group of platforms run by literal fascists - Twitter, Facebook/Instagram/Threads, and Bluesky - which protect some people enough to make those people feel comfortable there, and use the network effect to rope in others. We also have a group of platforms (the Fediverse, Matrix) which don't lock in users or force a fascist ideology on their moderators, but also don't have sufficient moderation tooling for individuals and groups to define and defend their spaces.
People find the fascists' platforms familiar, and for some people, they are genuinely a much better experience. But the right solution isn't to get frustrated at those people, or to try to "re-centralize" the Fediverse or build "our own" centralized platforms; it's to support projects like GoToSocial that are making the Fediverse a better place.
Instead, we have to build tools that allow people to define the space they exist in, protect their peace to the extent they want to, and build communities - and we need accept that people we dislike, even people who hold racist or transphobic beliefs or support evil politicians or states, will also be able to use those tools, and build them to mitigate the harm bad actors can cause.
Right now, we have a group of platforms run by literal fascists - Twitter, Facebook/Instagram/Threads, and Bluesky - which protect some people enough to make those people feel comfortable there, and use the network effect to rope in others. We also have a group of platforms (the Fediverse, Matrix) which don't lock in users or force a fascist ideology on their moderators, but also don't have sufficient moderation tooling for individuals and groups to define and defend their spaces.
People find the fascists' platforms familiar, and for some people, they are genuinely a much better experience. But the right solution isn't to get frustrated at those people, or to try to "re-centralize" the Fediverse or build "our own" centralized platforms; it's to support projects like GoToSocial that are making the Fediverse a better place.