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...
π³π±
@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.
@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
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.
@freemo Do you see it as a problem that the black community left the fediverse? @ourdiaspora @cwebber
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.
@freemo Sorry but u are aware. The first post in this thread did reference it: http://weirderearth.de/goodbyepv.html @realcaseyrollins @ourdiaspora @cwebber
@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 ainβt 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 donβt offend anyone, iβd be on twitter.
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...
@freemo @eest9 @Locksmith @ourdiaspora @cwebber ouch π