Well written piece by @distel about a serious loss to the fediverse: the departure of playvicious.social, the most prominent black-oriented member of the fediverse: http://weirderearth.de/goodbyepv.html
I think there are a few things here to reflect on... critically indeed the way that the fediverse at large participates in racism systemic in our society. Much of this is social and the need for group prioritization of values. And I agree with all that analysis in the post.
Also...
I think it's clear to me that the kinds of border-oriented tooling of allow/deny lists is already struggling to keep up, especially in meeting the needs of those most vulnerable. As the fediverse grows, the problem will grow worse.
On this category is a lot of the research I'm doing... but admittedly at this time it's probably frustrating to hear me say any of that, because what is really needed is code in peoples' hands. I hope I can demonstrate something better...
🇳🇱
@cwebber to me the answer is simple, hierarchical block/mute lists with both whitelisting and black listing capability. Mastodon and the fediverse almost got it right by allowing users to rely on their local instance to moderate, but the lack of override ability from the users or the ability for multiple inheretence is the killer.
Interesting how? They are standard terms that have been in use a long time. White is a color that includes all other colors, therefore whitelist is intended as a list that includes "all the things in the set".. black is a color that excludes all colors, therefore blacklist is a term taht means "things excluded from the set"
I suppose the terms are rather interesting and cool when you look into them, I never thought about that.
I am not sure the protocols will dictate the abusiveness of the content in the network itself.However it will, and the intended goal should be, to give you more control over the content you are exposed to.
You are more intelligent to _really_ believe that only, so shall say to more.
https://developer-tech.com/news/2020/jun/15/github-replace-slavery-terms-master-whitelist/
Without diversity of input, diversity in output may be more inefficient.
Huh, what does the link you shared have to do with the conversation. It doesnt talk about the history or usage of the terms whitelist at all. Just mentions some unrelated point about github not using it, which I am already aware of.
@freemo How ironically that you defend racist coded words in a thread which started with a link that criticized such behavior in the fediverse. Words can hurt. Even when you aren't meaning racist things, they will build conceptual metaphors in readers brains which leads to codings of good and evil. It doesn't matter what you intended with the words, this words will evoke and manifest pictures in readers minds. @ourdiaspora @cwebber
@eest9
Except that it isnt racist coded words, never has been, not just in terms of intent but usage. There is literally nothing racist on any conceivable level about those words. Its astounding im even needing to defend literal colors of inanimate objects.
@ourdiaspora @cwebber
@freemo They lead to racist thinking because they manifest a conceptual metaphor that white equals good and black equals bad. I accept that this isn't the intention but this is basic psychology. @ourdiaspora @cwebber
how you figure, I associate white lists with bad things because they block by default, and therefore block the whole universe, those on the list would represent the privliged few, and elite... ergo i associate white lists with bad not good.
Black lists the reverse they are inviting by nate, inclusive to everyone and only exclude a few people, therefore I associate black lists with good.
Forthermore its complete nonsense to think everyone is going to associate the actual color white with race.
I guess by this logic we cant make vanilla icecream white anymore because that would associate white with good, and we can no long depict poop as brown/black because people will associate that with race too..... The level of absurdity that "we cant have bad things that are the color black or good things that are the color white" are so monumentally beyond absurd I am astonished anyone is arguing this in earnest.
This just in, the actual colors white and black are now racist and shall be banned from all use in society and the words considered hate speech.
Come on now, there is **real** racism out there to worry about and arguing this nonsense only allows the real racism to thrive by making those of us who are truly against racism look completely discredited by association.
You think you are helping, but you are perpetuating racism with this stuff.
bonifartius 𒂼𒄄
@freemo @eest9 @ourdiaspora @cwebber
how serious discussions about how to fix problems are "derailed" by discussions about which words are evil.
i have another hot "basic psychology" take: people like to come to their own conclusions and then act accordingly. getting told which words are now evil and verboten because of dubious reasons doesn't work. that's why no sane person uses some other words anymore, insight.
