Screenshot of BlueSky post showing the power of composable moderation.
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Fair question!
White folk generally don't listen to Black people about their experiences. And when they do listen, they often don't believe. And when they do listen and believe, they often assume that them thinking about it for 5 or 10 minutes will yield a better solution than proposals from people that have been thinking about it for 5 or 10 years.
And in terms of queer... Mastodon never worked great for queer people in general. Because it never worked great for Black queer people.
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mekka okereke :verified:replied to mekka okereke :verified: last edited by
Queer people on Mastodon don't even notice the severe lack of Black queer people. It's very weird.
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@mastodonmigration @Bam @mekkaokereke @elduvelle “followers only” is privacy preserving in that your posts are not public, which has important legal implications under GDPR. If they constitute personal data (as is likely) they cannot be scraped, collected, stored, (eg to train an AI system) except with very specific Art 9 exemptions.
That they are a vector for abuse is horrific, and desperately needs fixing, but a lack of data privacy generates algorithmic harms too.
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@mastodonmigration @Bam @mekkaokereke I became aware of this problem through Mekka's posts, and then noticed a few very polemic dudes using it on me in political "discussions". Had to screenshot their replies and post them myself. They claimed they didn't know what they were doing. I can't imagine how it must feel when people use this frequently on you with clear abusive goals. I completely understand that this renders mastodon an unfriendly place.
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@mastodonmigration @Bam @mekkaokereke Some people prefer to keep their posts to a closed group of people instead of publishing everything for the world to see. This could be because they don't want their employer to see what they write online, or because they're from a vulnerable group that's at risk of receiving harassment online, or because they don't want their thoughts to be recorded on the internet forever. It's a fairly popular method of posting on Mastodon.
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@janhelms @mastodonmigration @Bam @mekkaokereke just curious - is this a setting you explicitly set on each post, or is it possible people have their accounts set to “followers only” and then reply to someone, thus making a followers-only reply?
I could easily see myself falling into the latter category, if that’s how it works. Not that I try to harass anyone - life is too short to waste my own time trying to bring unhappiness into the world. We’ve got enough of that already anyway.
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Mastodon Migrationreplied to Eugen Rochko last edited by [email protected]
This makes sense, and several replies in this thread are from people who clarify that they use this mode for the purposes you describe. As others note this mode is also used as a means to harass people while remaining hidden from public view. So, both things seem true. A lot of the discussion centers around how to preserve the positive uses, while addressing the potential for abusive uses of the mode.
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@jdp23 do you have examples of what could be done to limit abuse from followers-only replies?
I did not know it was used for harassment, though it now seems obvious in hindsight, but I know many who use them legitimately and would be curious to know whether/how the potential for harm could be mitigated.
@mastodonmigration @mekkaokereke @Bam @SRLevine -
Mastodon Migrationreplied to Mastodon Migration last edited by
Interesting reply post on the subject in this thread by @UlrikeHahn discussing the important GDPR privacy preserving features of this mode, as well as the need to address potential issues.
Ulrike Hahn (@[email protected])
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] “followers only” is privacy preserving in that your posts are not public, which has important legal implications under GDPR. If they constitute personal data (as is likely) they cannot be scraped, collected, stored, (eg to train an AI system) except with very specific Art 9 exemptions. That they are a vector for abuse is horrific, and desperately needs fixing, but a lack of data privacy generates algorithmic harms too.
FediScience.org (fediscience.org)
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@mastodonmigration
Surely, there is no positive interaction happening if I reply to you in a way that you cannot reply to me.I don't know the technical aspects of it, but as a user, I would wish replies to always have symmetrical rights.
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Dave "Wear A Goddamn Mask" Cochran :donor:replied to Mathaetaes last edited by
@mathaetaes @janhelms @mastodonmigration @Bam @mekkaokereke i just sent an example "followers-only" reply. Did you see it?
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Mastodon Migrationreplied to Dave "Wear A Goddamn Mask" Cochran :donor: last edited by [email protected]
@dave_cochran @mathaetaes @janhelms @Bam @mekkaokereke
Answered your followers only reply:
"This account sees it. This account does not follow you, but is @ mentioned. It seems like this is the issue with the mode. You can @ mention a target, but the only other accounts that can see your post are your followers."
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@jdp23 @mastodonmigration @mekkaokereke @Bam @SRLevine
Posting about this unsuitable technical implementation from a conversation experience perspective - https://mastodon.social/@dahukanna/113216625933703711 -
@mekkaokereke I do notice it, and I understand somewhat of the why – I just don't understand why the solution that worked for me doesn't work for them because the problems superficially resemble mine, a white queer person.
On mastodon.social I had similar problems w.r.t. moderation etc., other people getting shit moderated away which left me alone reading transphobic comments. On my new instance not anymore.
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"Some people prefer to keep their posts to a closed group of people"
The use case discussed here is a bit different.
You can tag a non-follower in your post, then set the post to followers-only, making it so that the person you mentioned can see your post, your followers can pile on, and nobody else gets to witness this.
There really is no reason for this functionality, a followers-only post should not be shown to people who are not followers.
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@ljrk @mekkaokereke look at mekka's response to you again, and apply what he said about white people to white moderators. Almost every moderator on the fediverse is white. That's why it doesn't work.
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@tillshadeisgone @mekkaokereke I understand that, but I don't understand how that's a reason why the solution wouldn't work.
Specifically, this was the same for non-queer-aligned servers in the fedi as well. While the fedi is generally more queer than maybe some other platforms, many mods used to be cis-het and the policies often didn't recognize queerphobia much. That's why "we" did our own servers. This has both provided us with a safe-space as well as pushed the entire fedi slightly more queer because it provided reason for influx of (white) queer people.
And I just don't understand why this approach does not work for the BIPoC community as well
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@ljrk @tillshadeisgone @mekkaokereke From what I've read, it's because ActivityPub itself was unfriendly towards features black Twitter relied on (like quote tweets) and just telling people to fork it if they didn't like it.
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@semitones @tillshadeisgone @mekkaokereke That's something specific to Mastodon but not AP in general, I'd say. Specifically, many queer instances use a Misskey fork that have Quote-Posts for that reason (amongst others).
What I'm saying is: I totally agree that the "standard" Mastodon on a somewhat "apolitical" instance is bad for the BIPoC community... as it is for *any* discriminated-against group indeed. But the beauty of the Fedi is that we can build our community and do *not* need to depend on 3rd party white cis savior-type dudes to help us.
(Side note: A lot of resistance against QP came from the trans community because we've seen QP weaponized for targeted harassment. Mastodon often prioritizes this kind of safety over features. A proposed solution was to add a permission-system for QP. But I think this went no-where for Mastodon itself.)
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@ljrk @semitones @tillshadeisgone
Your confusion is understandable! And thank you for sticking with it to try to understand, and for being brave enough to ask these questions.
The part that is not connecting, for you, and for many people, is that other marginalized identities are not like being Black. Racism is worse, and more pervasive. People often use their other marginalized identities as a shield, from behind which they can be even more racist than non marginalized people. 🤯
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