bigjigsawNov 23, 2022
Matthew McGranahan 🏳‍🌈

Here is an example of being over the top with the #CW feature. The admins over at aus.social instance is requiring all toots relating to #auspol to have CW enabled.

If you don't want to see auspol content, scroll and/or block accounts that participate in auspol toots.

Those of you on the same instance as me #mastondonau, CW is not required for auspol, don't feel like you are required to use it. Server rules are available on the "about" page.

https://aus.social/@AusSocialMods/109390315623687378

Aus Social Mods (@[email protected])

Reminder to all the new folks who have joined us over the past week: please make sure if you are tooting links regarding, or have commentary on AusPol, elections, political parties and your views on them, electoral politics, or geo politics you are required to use the CW feature on those toots. We understand that for some people this is a new idea so we will not be going back in time to punish folks. Whether you use the browser or one of the many apps, that feature exists whenever the text box is up. It will not hide your toots from peoples feeds, it will simply act as a subject line to allow people to opt in. This is a request to make our lives as volunteers easier, but don’t mistake that for being optional, bad actors will be removed. Please refer to the Aus Social code of conduct before asking questions https://aus.social/about (but otherwise feel free to ask questions) Big thanks from the Aus Social mod team - H

Aus.Social
Nov 23, 2022 at 1:26amWeb
Show threadMatthew McGranahan 🏳‍🌈Nov 23, 2022
For MastodonAu rules
https://mastodon.au/about
Mastodon Australia

No description because we couldn't make up our minds and went fishing instead 😆

Mastodon hosted on mastodon.au
Show threadMatthew McGranahan 🏳‍🌈Nov 23, 2022

This was a very interesting response from the admins of aus.social to @AaronDodd criticism.

Really starting to think the criticism I have heard about the admin team is valid.

Show threadsortiusNov 23, 2022

@CurbsideShip116 there's also great filtering features that the aus.social users could be using, instead of bullying others to use CWs. The whole "CW whatever I don't want to see" attitude is so broken it's not funny, especially when it's codified as a server rule.

How does anyone know what someone else doesn't want to see? What if I don't want to see people's complaints about a lack of CW on something they don't want to see? Who wins that one? 😂

Show threadMatthew McGranahan 🏳‍🌈Nov 23, 2022
@sortius that needs a boost, cause I had yet to learn about the filtering functions, and I am sure a lot of people would love to know.
Show threadsortiusNov 23, 2022
@CurbsideShip116 it's part of Mastodon 4.0 that was released a week or so ago. I've been trying to impress that on the CW bullies, but few are receptive 😩
Show threadMatthew McGranahan 🏳‍🌈Nov 23, 2022

@sortius I mean, my take is that it is a more powerful feature than simply relying on others to use the CW feature.

Also, if social.aus admins pushed on the use of that feature instead, they would probably have to spend less time moderating if CW had been used on auspol posts or not.

Show threadsortiusNov 23, 2022

@CurbsideShip116 exactly. There's a large portion of aus.social that do use auspol and the like, so they're really fighting a losing battle.

All it's doing is giving them a bad rep on other instances, especially when their users decided to white knight for them.

As much as there are definitely things that need a CW (porn, graphic imagery, potentially triggering stories), the onus should be on the people who "don't want to see" <insert content>. Personally, I just move to the next toot 😆

Show threadVivekaNov 23, 2022
@sortius @CurbsideShip116 Surely this is working as designed. People who want lots of CWs are drawn to aus.social and people who want fewer are drawn to mastodon.au.
Show threadsortiusNov 23, 2022
@Viveka @CurbsideShip116 not really. People on aus.social are bullying people on other servers to use CWs, and the admins refuse to do anything about it
Show threadVivekaNov 23, 2022
@CurbsideShip116 @sortius Yeah that’s not cool. I’m on aus.social and I’ll try to get across that our rules don’t apply elsewhere. People don’t understand federation yet, but they will. I reckon it’ll shake out.
Show threadsortiusNov 23, 2022
@Viveka @CurbsideShip116 I hope so, because my block list is filling up with people from aus.social
Show threadVivekaNov 23, 2022
@sortius defederate from me you coward :p
Show threadsortiusNov 23, 2022
@Viveka hehehe, believe me, blocking aus.social has crossed my mind a few times😝
Show threadVivekaNov 23, 2022
@sortius look, fair. I reckon we’ll find our balance, but you might want to put us on a timeout while we do ;)
Show threadMatthew McGranahan 🏳‍🌈Nov 23, 2022

@Viveka @sortius yea not a criticism of Mastodon. Those uses can always migrate.

I also note that aus.social has a lot less users than mastodon.au
Like 19K less.

Also, part of the point of my toot was for people to see that it is not required on mastodon.au
Not every user is understanding the decentralised structure and how that relates to rules.

Show threadVivekaDec 2, 2022
@sortius @CurbsideShip116 aus.social has relaxed our guidance on CWs now that the improved hashtag filtering is out. But we still encourage people to understand that:
1. the cultural practice of using CWs for more than just what’s considered “sensitive” to white, straight, male neurotypicals can be interesting and useful
2. they don’t make posts invisible - they make them more likely to be seen by people who are interested in them
Show threadsortiusDec 2, 2022

@Viveka @CurbsideShip116 there's no "cultural practice" for CWs, so I can't agree with that. Much of the CW demands for racism, medical stuff, and the like, aren't coming from the communities affected, it's coming from privileged people who "don't want to see" it.

As I keep repeating, CW overuse is damaging. Hell, CW use point blank creates anxiety in people who they're intended for. This isn't my opinion, this is backed by studies https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/trigger-warnings-fail-to-help.html

The Following News Release Contains Potentially Disturbing Content: Trigger Warnings Fail to Help and May Even Harm

New research confirms trigger warnings have little or no benefit.

Association for Psychological Science - APS
Show threadVivekaDec 2, 2022
@CurbsideShip116 @sortius There is such a cultural practice; perhaps you think I’m asserting that the practice is uniform or well defined? I’m not.
I agree that calling CWs “trigger warnings” or perceiving them as such is not tremendously useful. I’d prefer Mastodon to more fully implement the ActivityPub spec, by making the Sensitive flag optional on Subject Lines. The current implementation of CWs forces users to couple them.
Show threadVivekaDec 2, 2022
@CurbsideShip116 @sortius And while I could certainly be convinced that trigger warnings are actively harmful if shown evidence, that’s not what that study shows. It tested only whether they “cushion the blow” of reading traumatic material (and found that they do not) and referred to a hypothesis (still untested) that they could harm by fixing people on a traumatised identity.
Show threadVivekaDec 2, 2022

@CurbsideShip116 @sortius This experiment didn’t test the benefit of *choosing not to read* the traumatic material after seeing the warning, which is their intended effect here. For those who advocate their wide use, it’s about consent.

And they are vastly more relevant on small instances formed around a topic or community of interest, where the Local feed is useful. On a big general instance, they’re largely useless.

Show threadVivekaDec 2, 2022
@CurbsideShip116 @sortius
I see the risk of identity fixation, if that is indeed a thing that can be demonstrated.
Show threadsortiusDec 2, 2022

@Viveka @CurbsideShip116 which is harmful. Sorry, but you're trying to find a lack of evidence where evidence was observed.

I can say, as someone recovering from 16 years of DV, and still suffering PTSD, a constant barrage of CWs is harmful to me. It creates intense anxiety at times, and I've been close to blocking aus.social. The CW abuse is still rife on aus.social, and it's not being addressed at all (nor is the constant harassment from aus.social members)

Show threadVivekaDec 2, 2022

@sortius @CurbsideShip116
Right - that changes things for me, because I believe you.

Even before that, I was going to say: if aus.social users harass you to CW beyond what’s in the policies and norms of mastodon.au, please report them using the checkbox to forward the report to aus.social as well. The report will come to me and the other mods here, I’ll confer with the seniors, and we’ll put a lid on it.

Show threadsortiusDec 2, 2022
@Viveka @CurbsideShip116 Have, repeatedly, nothing happens
Show threadVivekaDec 2, 2022
@CurbsideShip116 @sortius Thanks, I’ll dig up the old reports and confer.
Show threadVivekaDec 2, 2022
@sortius @CurbsideShip116 I reckon it might not be possible to moderate aus.social the way we do if we onboarded new users at the rate of mastodon.au. So I’m glad there are multiple good Oz instances. @shlee has attenuated the influx by going intermittently invitation-only here. Again, I reckon this is the strength of federation with a spread of local norms.
Show thread Shlee fooled around &Dec 3, 2022

@Viveka @sortius @CurbsideShip116 Yeah. I could have just stayed open and allowed everybody on my instance.

We could have ended up with 50 thousand people on my instance, and a few hundred on the others

Instead now, we have 3 large instances with 20,20,10 thousand people and we can have slightly different cultures.

This is the joy of Mastodon. It doesn't need to be everything for everybody.

I was invite only for a reason. I have expectations for a reason.

Show threadbigjigsawNov 23, 2022
@Viveka @sortius @CurbsideShip116 No, people on aus.social will still be exposed to posts without CW originating from others servers (unless they persuade the rest of the fediverse to adopt the same practice).
Show threadVivekaNov 23, 2022
@sortius @CurbsideShip116 @bigjigsaw sure, in their Home feed, from people they choose to follow (directly or via boost) and in the Federated firehose. But not in their Local feed so much.
Show threadMatthew McGranahan 🏳‍🌈Nov 23, 2022

@sortius yea, 100% there are legitimate reasons to use it.

I would point out that if people want to use a CW, that is fine, but they shouldn't force others if it isn't required. Like if I was going to post something that is a spoiler for a new show or game, I would probably use a CW in that situation, despite it not being required. However that just makes sense to me.

Show threadSteveNov 23, 2022
@CurbsideShip116 @sortius but also I get that some people either don’t think about it, or don’t care enough to use it to cover spoilers, so I have filters set to hide content mentioning the shows that I’m actively avoiding spoilers for
Show threadMatthew McGranahan 🏳‍🌈Nov 23, 2022
@lilstevie @sortius honestly, how damn good is Mastodon. So many fb groups I have been in with people bitching cause there is literally no built-in function for dealing with spoilers, and so it is very easy to come across spoilers with no warning.
Show threadAaron DoddNov 23, 2022
@CurbsideShip116 Agree, it's ridiculous. One could with mastodon filter out any post with the #auspol hashtag in it. That's a tool that doesn't exist in twitter.
Show threadbrett danversNov 23, 2022
@AaronDodd @CurbsideShip116 that's a pretty blunt tool.
Show threadAaron DoddNov 23, 2022
@Digger_71 @CurbsideShip116 I think the filters can actually be quite refined using Boolean algebra. I actually don't filter anything, but that's what I'm led to believe.
Show threadbigjigsawNov 23, 2022
@CurbsideShip116 They updated their terms to say it's just advisory, now they post that it's mandatory. Meanwhile the stream of #auspol posts originating from other servers don't have CWs because they're not required to. I really don't think aus.social is a good choice for followers of #auspol.
Show threadMatthew McGranahan 🏳‍🌈Nov 23, 2022

@bigjigsaw I don't think so either. I am all for them trying to create a safe environment for everyone, but I don't believe in this situation that it is increasing safety at all for users.

Note, if you need a hand in migrating to our instance, sing out, because there are plenty of people that will point you in the right direction.