I have recently uncovered a user who seems to be opening temporary accounts at QOTO, blocking all the moderators so we dont see their posts and then posting high offensive material (nazi imagery, transphobic and hateful derogatory content, etc) and then proceeding to announce to block list moderators and possibly on the #Fediblock list in general in an attempt to get us banned.
The issue of users being able to block moderators and do **exactly** this is something I have brought up to @Gargron before probably over a year ago but he has never acted on fixing this issue and does not see it as needing fixing from what I could gather (he can interject here if he would like).
It is something we as moderators are powerless to detect or act against unless someone actually reports the content first, that is the only way we will even see it. Thankfully none of the block lists have actually acted on this and no damage to QOTO has been done. But seeing as this may continue I want to make others aware of the problem, press Gargron to fix the issue once more, and also encourage **anyone** who sees such content on QOTO to please report it so we can act on it.
I can not personally confirm this but according to the block-list operator they seem to have reason to think it is @snow behind the attacks. This would be in line with the behaviors from snow I have witnessed in the past.
For the attempt by snow to spam and falsely accuse instances see here:
https://likeable.space/notice/A21ux0IbhoDJIkNxzc
For more information see these attempted block requests on QOTO that were made in this fashion:
https://schlomp.space/FediBlock/data/pulls/255/files
https://schlomp.space/FediBlock/data/pulls/248
(Note: originally posted from @freemo account. Repasted here to show up in QOTO announcements as well)
Mastodon's implementation of blocks is bad. Very, very bad. It's an attempt to emulate Twitter's block "logic", which is also bad.
On almost any other platform/protocol that came before modern social media, Alice blocking Bob means that Alice does not see anything Bob posts, and DMs/whispers from Bob either get silently dropped or rejected with a message. Bob is "blocked" from communicating with Alice.
Twitter and Mastodon (try to) also enforce the inverse; Alice blocking Bob also means Bob cannot see anything Alice posts. To some, this sounds fair and reasonable. The problem is, it can only ever be enforced on a website that requires an account to view content. And Twitter's entire business model is a global public conversation that anybody can tap into and participate in. 80% of visitors are lurkers, lurkers share by pasting links to other platforms. This is incompatible with requiring registration to view content.
But Mastodon is free! It's open! It's run by you! It's by the people! It's for the people! Why on Earth would you want/need to emulate those evil bastards at hellsite dot com?
Because of market pressure. As it turns out, Mastodon's target market, people who were too toxic for twitter, routinely used the blocker-is-invisible-to-blockee logic as a weapon on twitter. Obviously, they expected their full toolkit to be available on Mastodon. But Mastodon is decentralized; you can only reliably perform this sort of restriction on the blocker's server. that's it. that's a very small part of the fediverse.
What's the solution? Understand that this is gaslighting literally everyone involved. It also gives a false sense of security, which I feel is important to mention, because these features are almost always forced upon us for reasons of health and safety.
@r000t @QOTO @Gargron @arteteco @Sphinx @khird @freemo
There are use-cases where the inverse logic is appealing, e.g. wanting to participate but not show posts to an abusive ex. What seems to be the natural compromise is (1) Alice blocking Bob prevents Bob from sending messages or replies to Alice, and (2) if Alice is private (only approved logged-in users can see her posts), Bob is blocked from seeing her content. GNU rooot makes a good point that if the content is public, there is no point in blocking any logged in user from seeing it. Note that (2) doesn't require any additional action because (1) prevents Alice from even seeing Bob's request to see Alice's content.
There are important use cases for private groups beyond the abusive ex. In my area (economics), public discussion is immediately attacked by trolls and poorly educated partisans. Having a private, restricted conversation is often necessary for having a good conversation.
And perhaps needless to say, it should be possible for a Mastodon instance to prevent blocking mods. What is beautiful about Mastodon is that if I don't like an instance's policies, I can move to another instance or start my own. This structure allows absolute free speech while allowing individuals to avoid speech they want to avoid through instance policies. Blocking moderators prevents enforcement of instance policies, so undermines the value of Mastodon.
@mcafee
You know what's perfect for small, close-knit communities who need to restrict content access to approved members?
Forum software such as phpBB and SimpleMachines.
@QOTO @Gargron @arteteco @Sphinx @khird @freemo