Eleanor Saitta on Nostr: nprofile1q…xd2rl There are a ton of black folks, including friends I miss, who ...
nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpqe7rqcsp5pypj3ac5wxnvgnwxmdl5the60wggwlqytaxm9kql0cdsaxd2rl (nprofile…d2rl)
There are a ton of black folks, including friends I miss, who found it way less hostile and much more responsive to needs around the kind of tools they needed to stay safe.
Moderation is a statement about group norms. Mastodon relies on the idea that server mods can entirely define those norms and that defederation is enough to create social boundaries. Most white people, having been raised in racist societies, are also racist and don't notice or mind racist speech (this just a fact about the world at large) and therefore most communities include significant amounts of racist behavior here, as it's only seen as a reason for defederation in extreme cases. Yes, they could start PoC-centric instances, but that only helps on the case where folks only want to talk amongst themselves. If they want to interact with larger servers and actually get the benefit of the network, it doesn't make a difference.
Homophobia and transphobia, unlike racism, are noticed by most people in this community, at least at some level, and have become enough less common in casual social interactions in the groups that masto draws from that defederation is enough to take care of the extremist groups. If we ignore the extremists and stuff driven by old Twitter's virality mechanics, masto is for me neither better nor worse. For sexism, it's influenced by the open source community, so in general a bit worse than Twitter was.
The PoC who've left mastodon in large numbers or who did not sign up in the first place and who are on bluesky aren't dumb or misguided. They've watched masto refuse to prioritize or implement the tools that they've very clearly said they need to be able to use the system, even in the presence of mods who give a shit. Bluesky has, by all accounts, mostly been much better about the tools they actually need. Because racism is more pervasive, they need to be able to have their own community define its boundaries, because mods aren't going to do it for them, any more than they do it here.
There are a ton of black folks, including friends I miss, who found it way less hostile and much more responsive to needs around the kind of tools they needed to stay safe.
Moderation is a statement about group norms. Mastodon relies on the idea that server mods can entirely define those norms and that defederation is enough to create social boundaries. Most white people, having been raised in racist societies, are also racist and don't notice or mind racist speech (this just a fact about the world at large) and therefore most communities include significant amounts of racist behavior here, as it's only seen as a reason for defederation in extreme cases. Yes, they could start PoC-centric instances, but that only helps on the case where folks only want to talk amongst themselves. If they want to interact with larger servers and actually get the benefit of the network, it doesn't make a difference.
Homophobia and transphobia, unlike racism, are noticed by most people in this community, at least at some level, and have become enough less common in casual social interactions in the groups that masto draws from that defederation is enough to take care of the extremist groups. If we ignore the extremists and stuff driven by old Twitter's virality mechanics, masto is for me neither better nor worse. For sexism, it's influenced by the open source community, so in general a bit worse than Twitter was.
The PoC who've left mastodon in large numbers or who did not sign up in the first place and who are on bluesky aren't dumb or misguided. They've watched masto refuse to prioritize or implement the tools that they've very clearly said they need to be able to use the system, even in the presence of mods who give a shit. Bluesky has, by all accounts, mostly been much better about the tools they actually need. Because racism is more pervasive, they need to be able to have their own community define its boundaries, because mods aren't going to do it for them, any more than they do it here.