@OutOnTheMoors The difference in my mind i that

1) hate speech is a matter of opinion and what is hate speech to one person is not to another.

2) in a free space zone people can of course block anyone who bothers them, so if your easily offended you can still get your wish and block everything in sight. So there is no "tyranny of the troll". So in my eyes your really just exchanging freedom for tyranny of the easily offended.

Of course if thats what you want, by all means go for it. But I prefer a world where the individual has control over what they hear and say with the freedom to say anything they want to anyone who listens.

@freemo The "tyranny of the troll" I was referring to is the current Twitter experience.

@OutOnTheMoors I left twitter for the opposite reason, they are far too quick to block people and appealing such a process is impossible.

This is what i was getting at, two groups of people come to mastodon. Those who want everything and anything censored that could even remotely offend someone, and those who want free speech as the top priority.

Most people who come from twitter see it as failing on either side of that bargain.

@freemo The other day I was having an informed discussion about the problems of trying to interpret older things through later prisms. (It's how the Greek philosophers end up in Hell in Dante's Inferno - they predated Christ, can't be Christians, can't go to heaven.)
A troll barged, accusing me of being a rape apologist. I told her to fuck off, *expletive*. Guess which one of us had her account locked for 12 hours?

@OutOnTheMoors If either of you had your account block then twitter was in the wrong (by my ideal social media standards) and would be an example of "tyranny of the easily offended", since your being banned over someone being offended by something when they could easily just block you or not engage.

So I'm not suggesting twitter made the right call here. If you were blocked you probably feel twitter should have blocked the other guy, I argue the proper solution is to let you use the tools you have at your disposal to do it yourself.

@freemo She reported me and I had my account locked. Neither of us should've been sanctioned, in my opinion. She came after me out of the blue and got sworn at. It's water off a duck's back to me - perhaps she shouldn't act like a cunt if she doesn't want to be called one.
But it's what I mean by the troll tyranny on Twitter. The site's algorithms picked up on a word and they're incapable of understanding context.

@OutOnTheMoors
I would say that is more like easily offended tyranny. You were blocked because people might be offended by a curse word.

@freemo The opposite, in my opinion. It allows trolls to make outrageous and libellous claims and cynically hide behind US mores (the C-word is six times more likely to cause offence there than in the rest of the world - I did a poll a month or so ago) by reporting me. She knows how Twitter works - I've since found she's a notorious troll.
I had never seen this daft woman's account before. Who knows why she attacked me, but I'd give her the same response to her face.

@OutOnTheMoors But isnt that the same on both sides. Knowledge of how twitter works can apply to either side. A troll who knows how twitter works can avoid getting banned and get others banned by reporting them when they violate the rules. But you have the same power, by knowing the rules of twitter you can avoid saying the things that get you banned and would be immune and similarly report trolls if they curse.

With that said I do agree it is still a problem your seeing. But the problem that you have moderation taking place that you disagree with. My solution is that no one ever gets moderated, so problem solved.

@freemo The difference, I suppose, is that I work in an industry where I have to be exquisitely aware of the laws in my country about defamation and abuse to avoid going to jail - or at least the unemployment queue.
Twitter operates in South Africa. Why should I be subject to a foreign country's laws? The internet does not belong to the US. It's time to get over that idea. If a US company wants to sell things here, it must abide by local laws.

@OutOnTheMoors Well that is true of Mastodon too. Each mastodon instance must follow the laws in the country it exists. As such you are subject to the laws of whatever country the server you use happens to be in

With that said I do agree it partially solves the problem since you can join any server you want, thus pick the rules/laws you want.

But I also think this is a divergence from the topic of blue vs red. Twitter is a failure to both blue and red minded users.

@freemo Twitter's a failure, full stop.
What I meant about US laws, however, is that they allow Twitter to behave however it chooses - and protect it against court action abroad.
Twitter won't even respond to South African police inquiries over their mishandling of user data. I can't give you details as the matter is sub judicae, but it involves a bank account (not mine) falsely flagged for fraud.
Other countries have different laws that apply to online companies.

@freemo Here's an allegory of what happened:
User A is suspended for bad language, immediately after retweeting User B's recommendation of a book by User C (with Amazon link).
User B is also limited by Twitter in a bizarre mixup of their data.
Every time A or B appeals, Twitter's insane algorithms flag C as a bot.
Amazon's crawlers pick this up and drop C's book from their site.
Twitter denies any culpability, but mysteriously restores A and B.

This is a current criminal case.

@OutOnTheMoors Well thats the problem when big corporations own social media. I agree twitter is a failure and that is one example why. The only point we disagree on is how they and other networks should moderate.

@freemo Other networks might moderate. Twitter doesn't. It relies purely on algorithms hastily thrown together to deal with the avalanche of complaints that started in 2016 with the rise of the trollbots. This is where their problem lies - it's too late to fix it.

(I'm User A in the example. Not only did I get the account involved back, but they restored another that had been banned for 50 weeks. Their opponent is a Swiss bank. Pass the popcorn.)

@OutOnTheMoors Well thats still moderation, its just very very poorly done moderation. But in my view almost all moderation is bad moderation (the exception being any user circumventing personal bans by starting new accounts).

The problem is even when you have real life people moderating you have exactly the same problems sometimes. Particularly when that moderation depends on the moderators personal opinions rather than objective rules.

All that said I still havent heard a good argument of why we even need any moderation at all outside of some edge cases.

@freemo I disagree:

"Moderate (v)

review (examination papers, results, or candidates) in relation to an agreed standard so as to ensure consistency of marking."

There is no agreed standard. There's the arbitrary imposition of rules devised by a closed ideological system.
Take a look at the Twitter Rules and quote me the passage where "cunt" is "hateful conduct". It's not there. But the puritan writing the code was offended by the word, apparently, so here we are.

@OutOnTheMoors Technically that is true of Mastodon as well. The rules are almost never explicit and are up to the owners whim from one day to the next.

@freemo Possibly. I did shifts as a moderator of the online forum of the newspaper I worked for in the early 2000s, when it was listed by Forbes as one of the top 200 websites in the world. (It's still very highly rated - I no longer work there.) I do understand the concept, and I'm comfortable with there being boundaries on behaviour.
Twitter does not moderate. It imposes a particular viewpoint, at best, is utter farce on average.