Follow

On small mindedness and shitty Fediverse politics. Long Post. 

I came across a post by sheer serendipity a few minutes ago, while looking at a user profile in a different instance.

It mentioned a hashtag that was suggested for using on reporting and recommending blocking or banning other Fediverse instances. It uses the hash "fediblock" -- and I avoided using the # in this case to not have this post added to it, unintended.

Reading thru I found mentions to various instances, and reasons people had for suggesting their banishment. Was suprised by finding a mention to a Pleroma instance where I have joined, and also a mention that "Qoto people had alts there". 😎

The poster then proceeded to criticize the Pleroma admin and even his personal project called Husky, a fork of the popular "Tusky" android mastodon client.

Husky's goal is primarily to provided support for advanced Pleroma features like Rich Text Formatting -- which Pleroma users can use in their Toots, via html tags, MarkDown or even BBcode.

While I see this as a sign of progressive thinking, and the willingness to take on a project, the author of the critical post was adamant that Husky would or could allow Gab users to use it for their own needs; which Tusky has blocked on their own client.

I have informed the admin and developer of this, and he was aware and didn't mind.

It does bother me, the small mindedness I see in such petty fediverse politics.

Β· Β· 4 Β· 3 Β· 4

On small mindedness and shitty Fediverse politics. Long Post. 

@design_RG

I never understood the psychology of trying to censor things, regardless of the public or private nature of the censorship. Its one thing to refuse to engage with content (perfectly valid and an excellent case for just ignoring or not federating with servers with it) and trying to deplatform it.

I remember the Anarchists C Cookbook (certainly something which, if you read and applied it, has a lot more destructive potential than the average troll Gab post) In censoring anything, you automatically make it desirable to have to curious people (I remember tracking down a PDF of this book with dogged resolve, even using an application to transform it to readable form on my PSP as a kid, just to have it because authorities didn't want me to, I learned something of encryption and stenography just to hide it)

Anyone who keeps trying to quash these things just ends up amplifying them by virtue of talking about them. I'm pretty sure most of these people don't really care, they just want to be seen "caring" and "doing something".

If they really cared, they'd shut the hell up about it and let these crappy sites die in silence (trolling / being an asshole becomes a lot more tedious after you are ignored) rather than providing an endless stream of curious people looking for "what they don't want you to see".

On small mindedness and shitty Fediverse politics. Long Post. 

@snow @design_RG I do appreciate being made aware of this, though...

On small mindedness and shitty Fediverse politics. Long Post. 

@design_RG I was following along fine until you mentioned "Gab users".. what is a Gab user?

On small mindedness and shitty Fediverse politics. Long Post. 

@lnxist Gab.com is a site that used to run their own social network, until their client apps started to be removed from the two major App Stores, Google and Apple.

Gab attracts a radicalized population, and is right wing, sometimes to the extreme. A lot of people on the Fediverse got really annoyed last year, when they saw and opportunity to avoid any more problems with their client apps being blacklisted -- by using Mastodon as their platform.

Lots of people here don't want contact with them, and are not happy to block the Gab instances (and their peripherals, there's a few other ones). They want their own instance and EVERYONE else to do that too.

I discovered recently that a large Technology based instance does block us here at Qoto; without any problem having existed, no conflict, no notice was sent, they simply blacklisted us along with Gab and some other less savoury characters.

@snow , I know, but it does bother me - there's enough sh1t going on in politics all over the world that I haven't been reading the newspapers as much as I used to. Annoyances galore, stupidity, outright biggotry, argh.

We got some twits here too, maybe I will have to write another blog post on Politics in the Fediverse. Would prefer some more positive theme, though...

On small mindedness and shitty Fediverse politics. Long Post. 

@design_RG @snow Thanks for the explanation!

On small mindedness and shitty Fediverse politics. Long Post. 

@design_RG

One thing to point out is that GAB got the way it is mostly because of the very actors that you describe (in general not these specific people).

Now before i continue I want to say, GAB is, at the moment, and for most of its history, very right wing. ITs content is significantly disgusting and I dont follow even a single GAB person (though have met some nice GAB refugees). So with that said let me continue.

The original mission, and even their current mission, was never to favor right-wing in any sense. They opened in response to FB and twitters censorship with only one goal in mind: free speech. Granted they took this goal to the utmost extreme, but in and of itself nothing horrific about the networks intentions.

However the left, particularly in europe, sees "free speech" as a sort of trigger word to mean "evil things are condoned here". So as a result the left boycotted the system from very early on. The end result is that hte left and even many moderates created the vile nature of GAB simply by boycotting it, leaving only the vile people to remain. Evil thrives in the darkness, by withdrawing and allowing an echo chamber to exist it ultimately snowballed and created a safe haven for that very darkness.

Federation I saw as an oppertunity to bring isolated, cruel people back into a larger community where their views can be challenged for the vile nature they are and hopefully well meaning people could bring some of these people back to the light. But instead the idea of blocking the whole network has only strengthened their resolve and given them an echo chamber where their ideas of prejudism are praised and reinforced.

We have to recognize that while they are entierly accountable for their own actions, we live in a society and int he long run it does more harm than good to silo them away in their own corner of the internet.

@lnxist @snow

On small mindedness and shitty Fediverse politics. Long Post. 

@design_RG

Here is a relevant post I wrote about 5 months ago that touches on a lot of what I said in my last post in more detail (it got a big reaction both bad and good int he fediverse)

qoto.org/@freemo/1027202534603

@lnxist @snow

On small mindedness and shitty Fediverse politics. Long Post. 

@freemo Thanks, I enjoyed reading the post you just made in this thread, and will follow on to this other one. TY!

Went looking for some references, I recall reading a really good article describing the situation and the Mastodon developer dilema on what to do, when Gab approrpiated the open source code for Mastodon (which he couldn't oppose, with it being open source) and forked it into their own version.

blog.joinmastodon.org/2019/07/

And some commentary from a page I am still reading, seems a conservative voice but explained with reason : reclaimthenet.org/mastodon-blo

AHHH -- found the article I wanted to link here, it's on The Verge : theverge.com/2019/7/12/2069195

@lnxist @snow

On small mindedness and shitty Fediverse politics. Long Post. 

@design_RG

Keep in mind the QOTO server (and as an extension myself as the founder) are several years old. I've been around since the earlier days of the fediverse. So I have seen how a lot of what you deal with now evolved in the first place.

@lnxist @snow

On small mindedness and shitty Fediverse politics. Long Post. 

@design_RG @lnxist @snow Small amendment, as a former Gab user; they didn't stop their social network when the apps got shut down; Gab was still available online by browsing to gab.ai or gab.com

On small mindedness and shitty Fediverse politics. Long Post. 

@design_RG Sadly there is a lot of this sort of people. Most of the mastodon are whitnighting against violations they see on FB or twitter. As such they are usually quite assertive about their politics.

On small mindedness and shitty Fediverse politics. Long Post. 

@freemo @design_RG From what I hear, many left because of harassment that wasn't addressed by or , so they might be looking for more moderation, not less.

The does seem well design, as a platform for safe spaces. Sites with big blocklists can create a kinder and gentler community.

On small mindedness and shitty Fediverse politics. Long Post. 

@realcaseyrollins @freemo One good thing came out of this (which I felt at first really spoiled my day). We got a good conversation started here, which will be on record for others to find and read later too.

And I did some extensive reading -- finding again the The Verge article that I had enjoyed (being really well written and rich), plus other articles that I branched into from links and add to my understanding of the whole Mastodon project, it's history and how things are.

Got another really interesting one that I finished just now - and that touches on the important questions regarding the way the project is lead. This one: dailydot.com/debug/mastodon-fe

This article references two pieces I had read previously (and are important in the historical comprehension aspect), published on Medium.com. These were written by Allie Hart.

medium.com/@alliethehart/gamei

and a later one: medium.com/@alliethehart/mourn

On small mindedness and shitty Fediverse politics. Long Post. 

@realcaseyrollins @freemo
And after reading all of these articles I had linked above (some read in previous days, and now collating into a better understanding), I went back to scanning the hashtag, and came across what's got to be the most out of control block list I have seen so far.

Really, I mean.

Who else is Blocking mastodon.social --- and accusing its admin of not doing a proper job of controlling access and posts from the instance? Yep, she is, this girl

Queen Bee's full list is at : stardew.city/about/more#unavai

On small mindedness and shitty Fediverse politics. Long Post. 

@design_RG @freemo

πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚ Certain folks here are quite entertaining.

I will take a look at the article you mentioned. They might even make for a good video!

Sign in to participate in the conversation
Qoto Mastodon

QOTO: Question Others to Teach Ourselves
An inclusive, Academic Freedom, instance
All cultures welcome.
Hate speech and harassment strictly forbidden.