Jess Alter
CybermatronJust went over to the other place for a quick peep and saw someone complaining about being asked to put CWs on posts over here for things they don’t think are upsetting, like “Politics”. It started to make me think about how I feel about both my own and others’ use of CWs. Would be interested to see what others think. Long🧵:
A few years ago, I spent a considerable amount of time on Tumblr, where trigger warnings are also a thing, done by adding “tags” or hashtags. I generally didn‘t add them to my posts, mostly because I used the hashtag section for snarky add-ons and comments on others’ posts I reblogged. Many Tumblr people do. It’s kind of a convention. Using the same space for two very different purposes seemed counter-intuitive to me.
More importantly, though, I didn‘t use them because I was extremely unsure about what might actually trigger anyone. It seemed too wide a field to tackle. And sometimes people got into spats about which triggers were acceptable and which weren‘t, which was not how I wanted to spend my time in my fandom. So, on balance, it seemed easier to make it clear that I did not use TWs and be done with it.
At one point, a mutual, whom I cherished greatly, instigated a policy for her own account that she would unfollow any user that did not use TWs. She was dealing with mental health issues at the time and this was her way of keeping her Tumblr community in her life without this making her situation worth.
I was sad to be unfollowed, but felt that it was entirely her decision. I could still see her posts, she did not block me, so life for me went on as before. I did not change my own policy on TWs, I told her why and we parted as friends. What I lost, though, was her seeing, commenting on, and reblogging my posts. I lost the diskursive element of our relationship. In hindsight, I have often asked myself, if I should just have spent some time on coming to grips with TWs.
Which brings me to CWs on here. My first observation is that, that it is easy to add them. The functionality is literally one extra click, which adds a negligible amount of time to your posting.
There is also none of the issue regarding sharing the CW function with other functions like comment or snark (although that may of course still develop).
So on a purely practical level, I have absolutely no issue with using CWs here and - quite honestly - I don’t feel that the argument that this is somehow “time-consuming” or “burdensome” makes a lot of sense.
Then there is the accusation that those, who insist on extensive use of even mundane CWs (like “politics”) are somehow snowflakes that force others to pander to their special requirements. I am more conflicted about that.
I am increasingly seeing posts by, particularly, BIPOC users who say that the requirement to use CWs is being weaponised against them. From what I gather, what people mean by that is other users coming into their feed and asking them to use CWs when they post about their own lived experiences. This feels to many like their use of this place is being policed by a group of mostly white morality wardens and they have enough of this in real life, thank you very much.
I have a lot of sympathy for that and I do think that we need to be extremely careful about asking others to behave in a particular way on here. Ultimately, isn’t the point of federation that if we do not like how another user or even instance uses their account on here, we can do what my Tumblr friend did and unfollow/unfederate from them. This does not need to turn into a civil war.
I am, however, also aware of one other group that is usually very unhappy with CWs and that’s the group of libertarian free speechers that claim that the use of CWs affects their right to free speech. Those, I have a lot less sympathy for and I do not miss them from the other place.
While those two communities are about as far away from each other as they can possibly be, I think these discussions raise a few rather fundamental questions that are probably important in any social media context.
1. Where does my right to access/avoid other people’s posts begin and end?
2. Where does other people’s right to access/avoid my posts begin and end?
3. What is the most mutually considerate way to accommodate everyone’s needs?
By and large, I am impressed so far by the way in which Mastodon users are handling this. Most of the ones I have encountered (albeit that I know that I am not representative here) have been polite and helpful and have tried to explain to people the reasons for their requests. That does not mean that politeness and consideration cannot be weaponised along lines of class, race, education etc. and we, particularly we white, middle-class people, need to be alert to that.
However, my own position is that I am not offended by other users using CWs for what I might consider a “mundane” topic. Because I’m not them and they’re not me and who died and made me God?
So when the poster over on the other place said (by way of example) “But CW: Politics? Not a world I want”, I’m responding “Why ever not?”
If it takes me literally a nanosecond to slap a “Politics” wrapper on my posts, and it takes you literally another nanosecond to click on that wrapper to unwrap it, what have either of us lost in this world?
I will still be able to write what I want and all my followers will still be able to read it. The one thing that I’m not doing is forcing them to read stuff they may not want to read.
And while people’s individual decisions not to read stuff are ‘t always unproblematic (more about that further down this thread), neither is me thinking that I have a right to force my content on them.
So, like@[email protected] I have come to think of CWs as “content wrappers” rather then “content warnings“.
And here are two examples for why that works for me.
1. Over on the bad place I follow Cory Doctorow. Now, Cory is an accomplished and fascinating blogger, who posts many long and highly illuminating threads on technology, regulation and all sorts of other nonsense that I love to read.
He also has a thing for photography and uses his account to post pictures of everything from brutalist architecture, to old technology, to vintage adverts. Because he lives on the US West Coast, he mostly posts when I sleep, so when I wake up in morning, my feed is full of the things that sprung from inside his curious head.
Now, Cory acknowledges this is something that might bother his followers and has blogged about this. His solution is that people, who don’t like his way of posting are free to unfollow him and he’s good with that.
Lilian Edwards@TheCybermatron this is why it would help to rename "content wrapper" as something else like "MoreContent" and also have true "CW" which shld be used w care & respect. To me that ends up w a good balance ( can also be creative & fun re former!)
@TheCybermatron side point is how much our aspirations are formed by the affordances of other sites we have lived in ( cos that's what it is - u Tumblr, me LJ). The expectations of ppl coming through from say TikTok are going to be incredibly different...
@TheCybermatron btw in case it isn't obvious, one big adv of "content _wrapper / LJ-CUT is to make longer posts more manageable/ palatable
Martijn Dekker🇪🇺 (OLD ACCT.)@TheCybermatron The whole idea that, by posting some plain text, you "force" it on people, as if readers aren't competent to monitor their own boundaries and protect their own mental health, goes at the heart of my objection against CW'ing normal discussion. It's denying agency to readers. I find it patronising.
As an autistic person, I have been patronised enough, and I would extend to others the courtesy of presuming them competent.
CWs should be reserved for extreme material.
@mcdutchie Interesting. My idea was exactly that by wrapping content, I am granting you and others the agency to decide what you want to see rather than forcing my judgment on you. So it wasn’t meant to be patronising, quite the opposite. As people have highlighted to me now, you can also just adjust your settings to make sure that all CWs are auto-unwrapped for you so that you never have to deal with them, if you don’t want to.
@mcdutchie But others might be grateful, if they do not have to look at my detailed 56-post live-tweet of the movie I’m currently watching. So they can take one look at the wrapper and just move past the post. Doesn’t that preserve their agency?
Ruggledome@TheCybermatron Tagging @Teri_Kanefield
Teri: this long and very helpful thread might provide some details for the blog post you are working on.
I moved to @law-and-politicsI am having trouble figuring out how to access it. When I click, I don't see a thread.
Me = stupid newbie
@TheCybermatron It is not easy to read CW'ed threads/discussions, though. You have to click on each of up to dozens of individual posts to expand them, which is RSI-inducing.
There is an option hidden in the settings to auto-expand all CWs (thereby making them all ineffective). But that only applies to your own instance. Due to how federation works, complete threads can usually only be read on their native instance, so if that's not your own, you have to click them all again.
72Degrees aka Pete FisherI thought the 'eye' (more or less) icon in the header of a column displaying a thread, opened all the CW content, without doing that globally in preferences?
Might be interface or version specific though, perhaps?
Michael Veale@TheCybermatron this is a very good thread, and helps me organise my own thinking. CWs can internalise some of the work recommender systems were doing without the significant downsides, in a world where we thankfully don't all share a (likely very broken) hashtaggable typology of all possible content.
the roamerThanks for offering this conceptualisation. I find it very helpful.
"Recommender system"; helping us in navigate communication where different people use different typologies. This helps me think about CWs.
Gareth Kitchen@TheCybermatron Um you have well and truly overloaded my feed with dozens of posts which makes me pretty sad. :(
Why not do one post and reply unlisted for the rest? Then I only have to see the first one, if I choose to expand it.
If you put a CW on your posts it helps other people. If you don't like seeing CW's there is an option in preferences to always expand them on your own feed.
Ben Jacobsen@TheCybermatron
Re: politics in particular - speaking personally, I'm actively interested other people sharing their lived experience or unique perspectives on important topics. I wouldn't be bothered if someone chose not to CW that sort of thing.
But, I do find certain kinds of national news/electoral politics type stuff exhausting just because of the sheer volume. If someone was posting minute-by-minute election updates or something, I'd definitely appreciate a CW there.
Cyber YukiI agree wholeheartedly with what you said.
In particular it was a hard lesson to learn CWs have been weaponized against POC. And I've seen virtual civil wars in here in previous years (even before this new users wave) where those are involved. They're just as bad as you think.
So the rules would be:
1) In general, use CWs. If you don't understand why you have to use a CW, then the advice is aimed at you, specifically. I don't give a damn whether you understand or not; just follow the rules and don't be a crybaby.
2) You're not obligated to use CWs if you're an oppressed minority and are talking about your experiences of oppression.
3) If you're NOT part of the oppressed minority in question, you have NO RIGHT to ask them to CW their experiences with that particular part of oppression. It would be nice, of course, but the oppressed minority in question has the moral high ground to say "this needs to be seen." It's their moment; suck it up.
To generalize, CWs are mean to protect oppressed minorities from everyone else; NOT protect everyone else from them, otherwise it becomes segregation. It's a one-way filter.
Dr Diego Garaialde@yuki2501 what if people within a minority don't want to be repeatedly reminded of their oppression, and would prefer the ability to skip such posts.
E.g. should I as an LGBT person need to see posts over and over about LGBT rights being taken away when I'd prefer not to?
Content can still be seen with a CW. I don't see it as a filter but a subject line.
DJP (Darren John Pope)Hi, great post. I see CWs as a mechanism of lowering the volume - or at the very least giving the user the volume control to decide how soft or how loud they want engagement - across a range of subjects.
That's a rather sloppy way of saying that in the other place the louder voices seek to dominate discussion - and when they don't get what they want, the volume gets even louder, language becomes uncivil, and engagement breaks down. 🧵
@GreenCarnation2 @TheCybermatron
Use CWs to "lower the volume" ---- an excellent way of putting it. Agree fully.
Dan moved, see pinned toot@TheCybermatron Good thread this
Ben Curthoys@TheCybermatron I had a little interaction in the other place about content warnings, and as far as I could tell their position boiled down to "I want other people to put content warnings on things I find upsetting, but I don't see why I should put content warnings on things other people find upsetting" so... I guess I'm glad that they don't like to Mastodon.
Michael@TheCybermatron I auto-expand them. Nothing bothers me. If I'm bothered by it, I can filter it. I would never subject someone else to taking an action because I can't handle it. Honestly, curiosity made me click most CWs anyway and those I didn't just meant I deemed a click worth more than their opinion. However, auto-expanded CW's are kinda nice - it's like having a TL;DR up top.
Karin Sorenby@TheCybermatron I’m absolutely ok with doing it. My issue is I forget. Like I just posted someone back about Musk. Now I think I should have put CW on it. 🙄oh well.. I just have to get used to it..sorry..
:-)
Same here.
Mike Rodriquez@TheCybermatron My thoughts are: I can't read the thread w/out clicking "show more" a few (dozen, you did say long :-) times.
that's a UI issue and a barrier and I just didn't do it. sorry, I am c urious about what you have to say, but not enough to click on all the comments.
@glowrocks And the fact that this is now your choice was exactly the point I was trying to make 😉.
But I agree that it would be more user friendly, if on threads, you would only have to click once to unwrap the whole thread. Not sure, if that can be changed, though. Might be necessary to use blogs more again.
Would be nice to have that option, of CWing the whole thread. That would require some mechanism for re-inserting the top-level CW when a lower-level post gets boosted.
But I agree, the need to constantly re-affirm one's willingness to read the content is somewhat jarring. I can cope with it, but it ain't perfect. This certainly won't stop me from reading a thread though ...
@glowrocks @the_roamer Apparently you can unwrap an entire thread by clicking on the “eye” icon when you’re in any one of the posts (top righthand corner on my Metatext app, not sure about other apps). So that takes away some of the strain.
Just Tom... 🐁@TheCybermatron Thank you for a really thoughtful thread, one that makes a great deal of sense. I have found CWs a refreshing change and have adopted them for things (like politics) where I sense that not everyone wants to read my views. I suspect, reading your posts, that I might well use them more extensively. To me that they more resemble the subject headers in emails - if you don't want to read the rest of the email just scroll on. Boosting for a wider audience.
My exact feelings. Learning how to use CWs to me was a way of absorbing a key aspect of mastodon culture & unlearning bad twitter habits.
Ian@TheCybermatron From my point of view it's not just about upsetting or offensive content; it can help people judge whether it's something they'd like to read or skip. Not a big ask as far as I'm concerned. Maybe it was presented to them in an insensitive way. I don't think one should make a big thing of it. If someone was annoying me consistently, I'd just block them.
Flaming June@TheCybermatron This is great - very thoughtful. And cool that it has a content wrapper.
PaulM@TheCybermatron I find CWs on things like politics pretty tiresome - it means you have to take an extra step with virtually every toot to read it.
So isn’t it lucky that I can go to settings and select to open all CW’ed toots? I can have things how I like them without demanding everyone else do the same.
So isn’t it lucky that I can go to settings and select to open all CW’ed toots? I can have things how I like them without demanding everyone else do the same.
Paul Squires@TheCybermatron I’m on the fence here. I don’t want to see content that is NSFW but nothing (afaik) else is going to bother me. With this the CW is minor annoyance and I’ve set my client to ignore/expand them by default. For others I can see the benefit (being flippant eg a fear of spiders)
However, something like a politics CW makes little sense in practice - innocuous comments can ultimately be very political
However, something like a politics CW makes little sense in practice - innocuous comments can ultimately be very political
Wow, you sure know how to thread a long thread. :-)
Seriously, your thread is super helpful, a thoughtful & nuanced analysis of the use of CWs, pointing out some of the overlooked overtones and undertones of CW conventions.
Thank you, you have helped this new mastodon arrival in sorting out his own CW practice.
It is indeed a vexed question. Some marginalised communities make a powerful case, but I am inclined to take your view. I suspect that it may depend which instance you 'live' on too. The problem being that once you go federated with replies, the custom and practice becomes as diverse as the people making up some of the communities.
I know the developers are discussing this issue on Github, with a view to possible rename which may take some heat out of it.
Teucer@TheCybermatron Great thread. After 2 weeks here, it's clear to me the BirdCage would be less toxic & reactionary if it had CWs. Yet many leaving there, due to its toxicity, believe BirdCage standards should also apply here (irony anyone?). This is not reasonable. CWs have many more positives than negatives, as eloquently described. If we took time to understand this (and that it's not always about us), social media could be a more, well, social place!
Matija Šuklje@TheCybermatron, thank you from my heart. I've been pondering about CWs lately and your thread very eloquently summarises my thoughts so far as well as dives into details and conclusions, I feel my own train of thought was navigating towards too.
Doroteja M. 
thank you @hook for pointing at this and thanks @TheCybermatron for writing this.
It's very well articulated and I'm especially thankful for thoughts on BIPOC's weaponised cws argument with which I struggle.
I want to contribute a little thought about the fact that the 🧵is about the space called 'home timeline'. I agree with everything written, but there's no consideration of local timeline and how posts are CWd according to that 'space'.
as a mod/admin trying to convince people about what you wrote I'm faced with multiple possible configurations between marking posts visibility (public vs unlisted) and CWs. I actually think that while CWing for your followers it is even more crucial to think of a community on your instance that is reading the local timeline.