🌺Apr 4, 2025

Why can we fairly effectively #isolateGab but can't seem to #fediblock eris and her ilk? Like, I know the answer is white supremacy at the end of the day, but are some of you really okay with it if the bigotry is wearing rainbow? Seems fucked to me.

I know so many black people's lives are made unnecessarily harder by the constant harassment and defending of the harassment by whites who "haven't seen anything about this".

And it's not like people don't block their harassers... This place needs better tooling, but until then can we not all come together about it like we did against Gab? I know some of you weren't here yet when that was taking place, but there was a separating of the fediverse to fairly effectively isolate a hate group instance in their own little hate bubble. There is no reason we can't work to make this space safer for black folk, especially our black queer siblings.

Show threadTim ChambersDec 19, 2023
@rwg I’ll work to quantify that - it def existed. I was a leader in #isolategab efforts… but almost all were “federate gab regardless” as a pure libertarian stance & suspect those are now still “federate Threads regardless” (a camp as you read in my blog I’m not in )…but in both cases they were a fringe, if a loud one sometimes.
Show threadTim ChambersDec 17, 2023
#isolategab - for those choosing “what is gab?” Here is your answer and a good summary of how things started: https://www.vice.com/en/article/mb8y3x/the-nazi-free-alternative-to-twitter-is-now-home-to-the-biggest-far-right-social-network
Mastodon Was Designed to Be a Nazi-Free Twitter—Now It’s the Exact Opposite

Gab, which has been used frequently by neo-Nazi terror groups to organize and recruit, is now the biggest node on the Mastodon network.

Show threadrealcaseyrollins ✝️Dec 17, 2023
@tchambers I very staunchly opposed #IsolateGab and would be interested in hearing your take.
TECI Social

Tim ChambersDec 17, 2023
Am seeing some (to my memory) mistaken history on the Fediverse organizing that I was senior in, that successfully fought to #isolategab back in the day. Was thinking about writing up a detailed, sourced account of that movement as I was very much on those front lines advocating to block. I’d also list differences between then and now with Meta in my view. What do you think?
Yes, do
68%
If you want to
18.5%
Don’t care
3.6%
What’s Gab.com?
9.9%
Poll ended at .
Deadly HeadshotDec 14, 2023
I hope the fact m.s is federating with threads doesn't get it blocked by #fedipact instances. Please don't split the fediverse on something less serious than when #isolategab was important...
Show threadTim ChambersJun 23, 2023

@probgoblin @timmy @nexusofprivacy

I think more like this:

The fight started May 2019 when gab announced the fork. But hadn't done anything yet.

July 4th, 2019 is when they launched with federation. *After* that the mass #IsolateGab effort kicked in fast.

Sometime around June *2020* ... gab dropped federation, but we didn't know.

And we learned we won that Dec 2020.

So it took a while.

Show threadThe Nexus of PrivacyJun 23, 2023

@timmy there was a typo that makes it confusing, but he's saying he was part of the effort to #IsolateGab, so has first-hand knowledge

@tchambers so with Gab, instances didn't defederate at first but waited until trolling caused moderation issues?

@Gargron's post at the time focuses on their philosophy and worldview, it doesn't mention anything about trolling or moderation. https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2019/07/statement-on-gabs-fork-of-mastodon/

And https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691957/mastodon-decentralized-social-network-gab-migration-fediverse-app-blocking only talks about moderation issues on Gab, not elsewhere.

Gab switches to Mastodon's code

After crowdfunding millions of dollars, social media platform Gab abandoned its own code and switched to the freely available Mastodon software in early 2019 as a way of circumventing Google’s and Apple’s ban on their own app from their app stores, since offering Mastodon’s client-side API would allow any existing Mastodon app to be used to access Gab. We have never had any sympathy for their thinly (if at all) veiled white supremacist platform so that was not a welcome move on our part, however the license that we publish our software under (AGPLv3) allows anyone to use it as they see fit as long as they keep the same license and make their modifications public.

Mastodon Blog
Show threadan interesting bean Jun 23, 2023
@tchambers @nexusofprivacy what do you mean #IsolateGab wasn’t a preemptive strike? Are you drawing some distinction here that I’m not seeing? That seems like an ahistorical retelling of how that went
Show threadTim ChambersJun 23, 2023

@nexusofprivacy Second suggestion for an addition: I was very involved in the #IsolateGab movement.

I'd add the note that one of the reasons for the full unity there is that it *wasn't* a preemptive strike at defederating.

It was NOT doing a first strike that helped us unify around a full fediverse-wide fediblock once they showed their intent. And even then, prior to the full fediblock, moderation tools helped off one by one cases well protecting our people.