woah! octodon.social blocks fosstodon.org? (and blob.cat apparently)
That's kind of depressing, that was the first mastodon instance I joined.
🇳🇱
@swiley Its pretty absurd the levels blocking has gotten. Usually its done under threat as many people demand you block a laundry list of instances lest be blocked.. it snowballs quick where instances wind up blocking instances just not to get blocked by what few instances can still see them. Its why we are so resistance to going down that very slippery slope here.
It seems to be a pretty big portion, and sadly there are very few instances that have local moderation rules and a polite environment but themselves are not block happy. Its so rare in fact that its been the main attractive feature QOTO presents to new users in my expiernce.
bonifartius 𒂼𒄄
@freemo
> Its so rare in fact that its been the main attractive feature QOTO presents to new users in my expiernce.
it was one of the main reasons i've joined here. i have some years ago created an account at another server but never used it really.
when deciding to really invest some time into the fediverse, i looked at their block list, half of the blocks were because of "free speech". unsurprisingly, unsavory posts about right-wing people or the police were no problem on that instance. while any instance is free to block whomever they want to, it's a shame that so many people fall for the doublethink.
i get why people want a "safe haven" where they don't have to deal with ugly real life shit. a closed web forum might be better than a federated microblogging protocol for that though.
@bonifartius I am happy that you've found a home at QOTO. I think that there are always interesting perspectives there. But the only way to think that blocking "free speech" (and I'm reading that as racist/misogynist/homophobic) and allowing critiques of Nazis and police is doublethink is if you think silencing oppressors and oppressed is the same thing. And if so, that's a pretty sad and myopic world view.
@pants @bonifartius @freemo @mathlover Most people would prefer *stopping* oppressors to silencing them.
Kicking a Nazi off twitter is something you do to look good.
@swiley They use that platform as a recruitment tool. Yeah, it's good PR, but it's also how you end up with less Nazis. And I agree, we should stop them!
Actually as a general rule (I did my undergrad thesis on this) censoring something generally has the effect of increasing intersest,/consumption/adoption of an idea. It doesnt not give you less Nazis, it would give you more.
People have a tendency to want to expiernce what they are told they are not allowed to, even if it taught said thing is harmful to them. For example stricter heroin laws results in increase in a communities heroin abuse, censoring certain books results in more people looking for and collecting copies of those books (and an interest in spreading illegal copies).. one could conclude the same is true for concepts like Nazism, by censoring it you effectively increase the number of nazis over time.
@freemo Doc, this is provably false. I have a degree in folklore and did a multi-term research paper on hate groups. They need exposure and normalizing behavior to grow. I'll try to dig up my paper if you can find yours. @swiley @bonifartius @mathlover
Censorship doesnt stop exposure, it just switches the channel of exposure to ones where the behavior is normalized, which is exactly what, as you just pointed out, is needed.
consider the fediverse where the nazi community is largely isolated by blocking. Censorship creates the initial interest, users then simply create a single account somewhere in the Nazi community, and now 100% of the content they see, flooded every day, is nazi hate.. they have complete exposure and their entire community appears to normalize the behavior. Couple this with the fact that the community tends to be welcoming to newcomers (assuming they arent a group they would be racist against) and you have a recipe for disaster.
Consider the inverse of that where they arent blocked. When they arent blocked the Nazi community would represent an extremely small community and a voice that would rarely be seen out of the sea of more positive voices, no censorship to create the initial appeal or interest, exposure would be minimal as there is no walled off comunity to act as an echo chamber (even if you join a nazi server your still federated with the vast majority of anti-nazi servers).. and no normalization in their own server or outside (because again the federation means non-nazis are interjecting and call them out constantly)...
So your own point actually directly supports my own, not only does censorship create more nazis but it in fact creates the two elements needed for them to thrive, exposure (created by a walled off community where you can hear only nazis) and normalization (the echo chamber such a community will have).
