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: 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...

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@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.

@freemo @cwebber
"white...", "black..."; interesting choice of language per se.

As a novice user of primarily diaspora and hubzilla, these protocols have been observed (personal observation, not definitive data) signficantly less abusive in content encountered, compared to mastodon and pleroma.

@ourdiaspora

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.

@cwebber

@freemo @cwebber

You are more intelligent to _really_ believe that only, so shall say to more.

developer-tech.com/news/2020/j

Without diversity of input, diversity in output may be more inefficient.

@ourdiaspora

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.

@cwebber

@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

@eest9

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.

@ourdiaspora @cwebber

@eest9

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.

@ourdiaspora @cwebber

@freemo What damage would be done if you changed this two words of your language? There where enough people that told you that these words hurt people either directly (BPoC readers) or indirectly (through establishing frames in readers). So why don't you want to change this words? What harm would be done if you would use allow list and block list? They are even more descriptive! @ourdiaspora @cwebber

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@eest9

I explained the damage, it would cause me, as someone against racism, to appear to be absurd, it would appear that i see racismw here none exists, and would cause my message of anti-racism to loose credibility and ultimately make people dismiss messages of legitimate racism..

You basically just asked "what is the harm in crying wolf even if there is no wolf"... well we have a story for that.

@ourdiaspora @cwebber

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@freemo Do you see it as a problem that the black community left the fediverse? @ourdiaspora @cwebber

@eest9

would depend on who and why, im not familiar with any sort of a movement resulting in max exodus of blacks from mastodon. All my black friends on mastodon are still here and havent mentioned anything about this, so I dont have the information needed about that to make a judgement call.

@realcaseyrollins do you happen to know anything about what he is talking about and maybe add your perspective here, since I myself am unaware of the exodus he refers to.

@ourdiaspora @cwebber

@eest9

Oh you meant a single instance choosing to shut down.. many of whose members had alts or moved to other instances. Very different than a max exodus of the black community but I see what you are refering to now.

So you are asking me if I feel it is bad that a blasck-oriented instance shut down (please be more precise with your words)... I think its ashame they felt they had to shut down due to anti-black sentiment, so yes I agree that server going down was a loss to the community.

@realcaseyrollins @ourdiaspora @cwebber

@eest9

Also lets be clear here, they had about a dozen active users a week. Most of those users moved on to other servers.. so hardly the mass exodus or "loosing the black community" that you suggest. While I do agree that it is sad they felt there was anti-black sentiment, it is also the opinion of a very small number of people. That doesnt make it any less true, nor am I saying they are wrong. But it does mean you dont get to imply that there is a mass exodus of black people in order to win an argument that they themselves never voices as a concern in the first place.

Please dont use random black people who never said what you are saying to try to win an argument. That is not being helpful.

@realcaseyrollins @ourdiaspora @cwebber

@freemo Instances are synonym to communities. People on single instances are interconnected as much as people in cities. Therfore black people without their own instance arn't a community in the fediverse anymore. They are just black people here. A community/instance can give themselves rules. A couple of black people on different instances can't. And this will be my last take in this discussion with you goodby! @realcaseyrollins @ourdiaspora @cwebber

@eest9

Right, and as I said it is sad the owner of the instance no longer wanted to run that instance, and a loss, as I already stated... Funny enough the instance used a blacklist and as far as I know no one on taht instance once complained about that word or as a reason for them leaving. They used the term themselves in fact.

@realcaseyrollins @ourdiaspora @cwebber

@freemo @eest9 @ourdiaspora @cwebber

I think its ashame they felt they had to shut down due to anti-black sentiment

Nah it was due to black fragility

@Are0h repeatedly insinuated that I’m an Oreo because I have followers (the #Fediverse is so racist, no one black could POSSIBLY succeed here! Right?)

There are certain people who think that racism is perpetual, read racism into literally everything, and decide to be racist against all non blacks. @Are0h is one of the people. What he says isn’t based off of reality, but off an ideology that is black supremacist-adjacent

@realcaseyrollins

Oh shit I totally forgot about AreOh. I see i have him muted and checking my log he was attacking me for being Native American and not "looking" native american. a long time ago (a year or more). Literally ridiculing me for daring to talk about my heritage and not looking red enough or whatever nonsense.

That plus now hearing your experiences sounds like he was more racist towards minorities than most of the people in the fediverse.

Oh the irony of them crying over shutting down due to racial insensativity when they were one of the biggest offenders of such towards other minorities to begin with.

I'm glad you mentioned his name or else I would have completely forgotten.

@eest9

I take back what I said earlier. I am not sad over that particular server of users getting shut down. There is no place for that sort of racism in the community. But hey, you keep fighting that battle to end the use of the term "whitelist" while supporting these racist types as your sacrificial lamb.... manyour priorities are backwards.

@ourdiaspora @cwebber @Are0h

@eest9 @freemo @realcaseyrollins @ourdiaspora @cwebber wow, such cry-bullying! i remember seeing some posts from playvicious social, they were massively racist. if they felt the need to shut down due to bullying, they need thicker skin because big tech ain’t here to shield them.

@eest9 @cwebber @freemo @ourdiaspora @realcaseyrollins this blog post is madness! people over here on the fedi so that they can just simply speak and not get banned by ever-changing policies, and they want to change the entire fediverse? what kind of imperialist shit is that?

@cwebber @eest9 @freemo @ourdiaspora @realcaseyrollins If i wanted to bend over backwards so i don’t offend anyone, i’d be on twitter.

@realcaseyrollins

Apparently having white friends automatically makes you a token.. no one could possibly be white and legitimately like you without regard to the color of your skin...

@eest9 @Locksmith @ourdiaspora @cwebber

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