Patricia AasNov 10, 2022
I wrote a thread about Mastodon on Twitter, it needs to be read.
https://twitter.com/pati_gallardo/status/1590485665535643649?s=46&t=hpE2Unzsn-9qKirLfo3tYA
Patricia Aas 🐢🏳️‍🌈 on Twitter

“Ok fine. I have tried to hold my tongue, but there is a line, and when Mastodon folks threaten BIPOC people with getting blocked for not Content Warning when they talk about racism… I need to get real with y’all. 🧵”

Twitter
Show threadJonny AxelssonNov 10, 2022

@patricia

The Mastodon archipelago does have a "this is a nice neighbourhood, and we like to keep it that way" aura to it.

However that is not necessarily a bad thing, or a good thing.

Ages ago I made an "entropy law" for online communities, that eventually they all end up in nazi propaganda and Viagra spam.

Any community always balance on the edge. Sooner or later it will fall over, and rarely recover. It's a ongoing balance between recruitment and decay, engagement and trolling.

Show threadPatricia AasNov 10, 2022
Somehow, I think Mastodon managed to make a third option.
Show threadJonny Axelsson

@patricia Few communities survive Trial By Troll.

However, troll defences also create friction for activists.

I am not naturally into "nice neighbourhoods", but as a strategy it makes sense.

Nov 10, 2022 at 12:15pmWeb
Show threadPatricia AasNov 10, 2022
That's how you keep the neighborhood homogeneous
Show threadJonny AxelssonNov 10, 2022

@patricia Not exactly. I'd see it in terms of long-term entropy and short-term balance. A little friction can be a good thing. (Too much and you got yourself a walled garden instead.)

Or to change tack, a city isn't homogeneous, people will largely stay in their groups, but the rest of the city is discoverable and available.

While suburbs are balkanised, into golden ghettos, and not so golden ones, all physically separated.

Show threadPatricia AasNov 10, 2022
Mastodon feels like a white suburb to me
Show threadJonny AxelssonNov 10, 2022

@patricia The Internet was once practically all-white.

That changed, though the Great Firewall of China (a little bit), language, and walled gardens like WeChat (a lot) largely cut off the biggest community from the rest,

Internet used to be young too. Facebook changed from mostly students to mostly retirees in 18 years, These change over time. Online will reflect offline.

I would hope Mastodon would be like a city, not a suburb. Cities got #serendipity.

Show threadAdrian FroschauerNov 10, 2022
@jaxroam @patricia But isn't that thinking the reason why places that are called "nice neighborhoods" are mostly white in real life, too?
Show threadJonny AxelssonNov 10, 2022

@AdrianFrosch @patricia

Real-world "nice neighbourhoods" tend to be where upper middle class (and aspiring middle middle class) gather to keep away the less upper middle class and other plebs. Didn't use it as a term of endearment, as these are exclusionary (and boring).

Not necessarily white, depends on who is upper middle class in your neighbourhood.

Show threadJonny AxelssonNov 10, 2022

@AdrianFrosch @patricia

That is also why I went off-tangent from neighbourhood to cities and suburbs.

This is after all an open platform in basically every sense of the word, bit like an idealised city is open for everyone to move in, move out, or meet. But it doesn't force them to do so.

Twitter ten years ago was a bit "Gangs of New York" (now maybe more of a Muskham City). There was no friction, so opposing gangs could meet and fight, and did.

Facebook is suburbia.