Mastodawn

Dr. Johnathan Flowers

Right, so: I get a lot of these kinds of replies. Not to dunk on Nemo, but the general tendency of telling folks to start their own instance with all of the features we want ignores crucial things that marginalized communities often lack: time and resources.

https://corteximplant.com/@nemo/109351863643584265

☄️Nemo (@[email protected])

@[email protected] i'd add that mastodon is not the fediverse, and that black community don't HAVE TO join mastodon. They could fork it and make it their own, or use a soft that maybe already contains the ability (i have no idea if that exists but hey ...) And by that mean forge the tool they need to build these communities out of harm way, with the affordances you deem are necessary. They could do it. And if it federates, it doesn't even have to be closed to the rest. How crazy is that.

CORTEX IMPLANT — a cyberpunk'ish fediverse instance!

Dr. Johnathan Flowers Nov 16, 2022

This is not to appeal to a "poverty model" or an "incapacity model" where marginalized communities are concerned, but to point out the very real resource dependencies necessary for a marginalized group to run an instance.

Beyond technical resources and monetary resources, two things which have been covered in the previous litigations of this suggestion by marginalized mastodonians, there are also personnel resources as well, by which I mean moderators.

Dr. Johnathan Flowers Nov 16, 2022

Any marginalized community or instance will require a greater number of personnel to maintain itself than an instance not focused on their needs. This is for the simple fact that marginalized communities, be it digital or physical, exist in a world that is actively hostile to their flourishing.

I am not being hyperbolic in this statement: I am being truthful and factual.

Dr. Johnathan Flowers Nov 16, 2022

Offline, in the US, we might take the increase in racist violence, the attacks on LGBTQ legislation, the attacks on gender affirming care, the rampant transphobia in academia, the ableist attacks on Fetterman during his campaign, and all the run of the mill micro and macro-aggressions that are part of being a marginalized person in the US as evidence of our constant state of being under threat.

Dr. Johnathan Flowers Nov 16, 2022

In a digital space, the threat is magnified in some pretty ugly ways. This magnification consequently requires people to "stand at the gates" of a given instance to defend it from trolls of a variety of stripes.

Put simply, you need a metaphorical "warrior caste" to enable the safety and security of the community, to deal with the assholes in ways that enable the community to persist in the space. You need moderators.

Dr. Johnathan Flowers Nov 16, 2022

Moderation, as an endless number of academic studies have indicated, is not an easy task.

It is made harder when one is a marginalized subject and is tasked with engaging with the kinds of vitriol directed at your community as part of your responsibility. To this end, any sufficiently large instance on the fediverse will need people to commit themselves to the task of moderation. This is a massive sacrifice made by volunteers.

Dr. Johnathan Flowers Nov 16, 2022

I would further argue that this sacrifice would be outsized for multiply marginalized subjects. Consider, for example, a parallel to the outsized advising load that faculty of color endure for the sake of supporting students of color. This is pretty much a similar experience that any moderator on an instance of color will face.

Dr. Johnathan Flowers Nov 16, 2022

Still further, there is the implication that the solution to harassment within a community, to being unable to be "at home" with others is to go elsewhere.

This ignores what makes Black Twitter what it is and what makes communities on social media what they are. We're not necessarily looking for separate but equal (as if that's even fucking possible): we're looking to be ourselves in all our fullness in public.

Dr. Johnathan Flowers Nov 16, 2022

Granted that is an imprecise metaphor, but given the cultural norms of the fediverse, it seems like the "build your own instance" argument would be motivated by the same kinds of whiteness that motivates "use CWs to hide this conversation about racism:" an entitlement to comfort in specific spaces, or the expectation that folks of color can be here without -being- here.

Dr. Johnathan Flowers Nov 16, 2022

Now, the metaphor is imprecise because of the federated nature of the fediverse, but still, it tracks in some crucial senses. One of the thing an instance of color will make possible is, say, banning the whole fucking instance to prevent conversations about racism from leaking into whiter instances.

I'm not saying white people need to be involved in these conversations, but come the fuck on.

Dr. Johnathan Flowers Nov 16, 2022

If enough of these instances are made uncomfortable by the hypothetical federated black instance, and that discomfort results in mass blocking of the instance, then the instance becomes a weird island isolated from the fediverse.

Which is... not great, but certainly possible given the prevailing cultural norms among instances.

Dr. Johnathan Flowers Nov 16, 2022

This is not to say that instances focused on marginalized experience should not exist, but it is to say that some of these takes ignore the high cost that starting these things imposes on the moderators and the members of the instance.

"Build your own instance" is not the solution that many think it is.

Litis Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai On the flipside, it also allows us to ban instances which refuse to moderate for racism.

Mike D Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai If the instance can support itself let it be.

Crystal Lee Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai 1000% this. The “build your own instance” arg to me also echoes a familiar rhetoric to poc: “if you don’t like it here, go back to where you came from.” More than that, tho, it’s a very individualizing response to a systemic problem

@crystaljjlee @shengokai to say nothing of the eventual fetishization, adoption, and inevitable appropriation of what ever separate culture would develop in relative isolation from the rest of the Fediverse.

Glenn Block #BLM 🇺🇦Nov 16, 2022

@crystaljjlee @shengokai I think that answer is an easy out. I mean if you are going to do that, why not start your own service? I am grateful for sharing your thoughts I read through your whole feed yesterday and that was enlightening.

Madhusudan Katti, he/him Nov 17, 2022

@crystaljjlee @shengokai exactly this! “Separate but Equal”; “Go back to where you can from” - that’s what keeps coming to my mind every time I see these arguments.

Jon Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai I’m not sure it’s necessarily wise either, since a marginalised group on their own instance can be silenced en-masse very easily.

Aaron Pettman Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai maybe censorship is not the solution that many think it is either! I'm genuinely sorry you had a negative interaction but you really seem to be trying to pin this on mastodon as a whole, as if your negative experience was built into its very technology.

𝓒𝓱𝓻𝓲𝓼 Nov 16, 2022

@Dr. Johnathan Flowers sorry, after reading some of your posts here i got to say that you misunderstand few things:

Here it is not all just about an alternative to twitter. You came to a place which is totally different because of many reasons. Your landet in the #Fediverse and

Mastodon is not the Fediverse

And

the Fediverse is not even close to Tweeter

Spend some more time here and try thing out

e.g. if you need besides the boosting also the quoting function badly just use an other software:

Try #friendica which offers both. https://friendi.ca/

"Build your own instance" can be indeed be a solution and it is not as costly as you think. You can run a friendica Instanz for $ 5 for all your friends.
But sure there have to be Instances for larger communities which should be financed by public institutions also

After all it comes down all to empowerment and sovereignty - something you can really archive on commercial platforms

@blaine

im.allmendenetz.de

kiki (extremely offline)Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai i'd be interested to know @Are0h thoughts on this - i feel like for folks who have been around here a while PV is the immediate example that leaps to mind when someone says things like 'build your own instance'

it didn't stop the assholes from being assholes

dithmarshall Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai Thank you for this change of perspective. I hadn't thought of it that way at all.

@shengokai it saddens me to no end that this is the response rather than how can I learn from this? How can I make space for you and your experience and create safety for everyone? How can I understand that it’s okay to be uncomfortable because with that comes growth and moving past old ways of thinking? Not all discomfort is bad. The added emotional labor that’s piled on top of the already high toll of just existing to make others comfortable with their marginalization needs to stop.

Cassandrich Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai If instances start blocking explicitly black instances for no reason other than that they're black (or thinly veiled fake reasons), we should be unified in condemning and blocking the instances that do so. I feel pretty comfortable the instance I'm using would. We need to make this the norm.

Creatrix Tiara Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai I believe that's already happened with at least one PoC-centered instance in the last few years

Chanders Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai I agree with you that this is the essential point. The notion of “public” on here is essentially an anarchist one, with all that implies.

But your use of public in this post is doing a lot of heavy lifting. To what degree is Twitter a “public” for anyone? To my mind it is essentially an opaquely algorithmically run capitalist platform that is now run by one (insane) person that deliberately fosters outrage, anxiety, and out-of-context attacks.

Chanders Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai if what #BlackTwitter has done is to create a genuine public out of this sea of bullshit, than to my mind that is what black culture has always done, and the rest of us are all (always) in its debt. But is it impossible do here? Maybe even easier? And maybe also the federated nature of this place can create a social stricture in which it is easier to build genuine solidarity with non-black (and also non-American) marginalized communities?

paramilitary organizer Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai I have a clarifying question for you, I haven't seen anyone saying "please cw racism" on here for years, and it is understood in my groups to be a hilariously bad idea, i thought. is this still happening?

Gina Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai Yes! Starting and maintaining a mastodon server is not trivial. I suspect most who say that people can just start their own server haven't actually ever done so. Ideally, yes, there will need to be more server instances, to fit everyone in who wants to come to the Fediverse. However, instead of saying someone who's unhappy with their options should go make their own server, these brilliant people suggesting that should step up and actually do it. Or just welcome the new neighbors. 😊

rakoo Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai that's a very interesting point. I've been convinced that the whole making your own instance related to your community is problematic, because maybe I want to be part of multiple communities. But I have the privilege of not having to think about harassment and having an instance for your marginalized group is just digital ghettoization. It's safer, but it allows harassers to not even having to face the problem they have; it invisibilizes the difference. And it puts the mental charge, again, on marginalized communities.

Paul Cantrell Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai That last sentence is one of the things I most miss about Twitter here on the flipside: hearing marginalized people speak frankly about lived experiences that would normally have been all but invisible to me. Hoping to find that here in time — and to help •create• (an active verb implying work) the space for it. Glad to have found your account.

Madhusudan Katti, he/him Nov 17, 2022

@shengokai This is precisely why #BlackTwitter has been super important for a Brown immigrant like me in the US. I have learned so much from from just following people and listening to conversations in that (and other marginalized) community that I would never have encountered in my otherwise largely white academic spaces IRL. Having marginalized people being their full selves in public benefits *everybody* even if it discomforts some.

Scott Willsey Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai I really don’t think mastodonians grasp the magnitude of this issue. They seem to think their beloved CW is the answer to all these problems.

Hobson Lane Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai Do admins track statistics on moderation effort @stux @nova ?

Somehow I feel like having federated moderation helps, some prosocial cooperation network effect. Regular users can block or mute (ghost) entire #instances.

And I think #server #admins look out for each other, especially marginalized communities. Even with the flood of newcomers I saw very little increase in #spam and #trolling... from my white male US freeloader (no server) bleacher seats.

Guthrie McAfee Armstrong Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai Yes, not to mention the increased vulnerability to mass harassment or even defederation that such instances would have to face. I have the freedom to choose to exist on whichever of the many Mastodon instances that exist, and that freedom should be available to everyone, without having to worry about whether a simple mode of communication like QTs would be properly displayed on the rest of the network.

Guthrie McAfee Armstrong Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai … it’s really astounding how many of your repliers have basically been repeating “whatever, go make your own instance/software for Black people,” as if this isn’t a feature that we can easily implement on Mastodon for everyone to share.

Tim Carmody Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai the DDOS possibility and other forms of targeted harassment is a very real one

Kevix (he/him) :debian:Nov 19, 2022

@shengokai what extra positions are you suggesting these communities need?

@shengokai It’s a lazy response and continues to ignore the issue of what instances admins should do to create inviting spaces for marginalized folks. Similarly to those who’ve mentioned admins/mods responding to harassment missed the point of it happening in the first place Of course we cannot prevent nefarious folks from creating an account but there is certainly a community solution to be had that doesn’t involve putting the work on the individual.

@shengokai I wonder if features like word filters, in that it would prevent the post from appearing in the first place could work. But runs the risk of blocking content that may be picked up by the word filter and those going a bit overboard on what is blocked. I’m reminded of the feature on TikTok in which you can block comments that have words from your filter list.

Kevin Troy Darling

@shengokai personally, I want more interaction so I can better understand. I don’t want a system where an algorithm or a set of conventions just feed me more of what I’m familiar with.

Dr Lisa Evans Nov 16, 2022

@troydarling @shengokai Exactly! Plus, just being white doesn't mean we're the same. It doesn't make us friends. A great friend of mine is Iranian, and I couldn't name very many other people of any background who I share as much of my world-view and as many of my interests with.

Micah Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai you shouldn’t have to start your own instance to have a racist free zone!

That’s it, that’s the toot

Michelle Laverick Music Nov 16, 2022

@shengokai interesting. The tech knowledge is a bit assumption. Setting up a mastodon server is no mean feat. It’s not setting up a group on FB. Even with SaaS model the post configuration is not insignificant…