Just briefly logged into mastodon and my mentions are mostly people debating my experiences here and whether I was entitled to tweet about them, and I just want to say, I was called slurs for days by people on *other instances* and received a death threat saying that they would do to me what was done to Emmett Till.
Anyone discussing any of this like *I* did something wrong, including by talking about it, is a fucking dipshit.
Have a fabulous fucking day.
I’m disgusted that protecting the reputation of the platform is more important to some people — including some Black people, what the actual fuck — than making sure people are safe, physically and emotionally.
That’s some nasty shit.
And to the “it’s just growing pains/join the right instance” crowd: Black people shouldn’t need a fucking Green Book to navigate the physical or virtual world.
@economics @chanda You said it better than I could.
Dr. Prescod-Weinstein, you're probably not going to have the experiences you're looking for here, because people on the general Internet are awful and the real world is a white supremacist world. Also, you're a famous public figure, compared to the average person, with a large following, and in multiple groups that the far-right hates. This place isn't going to provide the experience you're seeking, because it can't. It may never be able to.
@jedmund @chanda @jhamby @economics I'm curious in what way we're shrugging our shoulders?
We can't help everyone, we can do what we can. What more do you want from random people?
@zzz @denebeim I don't reply when I see bigoted ish. I investigate the source host. If it's obviously bad, I report it. If it's not, I report the user. 100% kill rate so far (probably helped because SDF showed up with a deep bench of volunteers).
I keep seeing Black people talking about catching hate from instances which should have been defederated *immediately* upon launch. You really don't need to wait to see what their users will do.
If you think the only people that can be bigoted on this network are people from instances with names like kill.all.ethnic.slur you aren't paying attention to what's going on.
The most insidious threats come from white self-identifying progressive people that just think they are giving "helpful advice". These people can harass marginalised groups for years and suffer no consequences since they don't pattern match as bigots to other white people.
@zzz @denebeim That's a valuable reminder. Is that "microaggessions"? I understand there was a dog pile about CW which falls in that category (I missed it).
Most of the Black folks I followed from Twitter have spoken about the kind of instance-based harrassment I was referring to.
I want Black folks to feel safe and belonging. That's why it's upsetting to keep hearing that they're not even getting the default protection. That's not okay.
I think there is an air of victim-blaming in the sentiment that it's on the harassed person to magically know which instances are actually antiracist. Wouldn't it be better to have a set of norms where most instances can be assumed to be antiracist and racist attacks are rare enough to be chalked up to bad luck?
For now we have a network that is systematically racist and it's the victims of that racism that are expected to do the hard work. That needs to change.
@zzz @opendna that's in the protocol and there's no reason not to do that if you want.
Personally I prefer blacklists. I prefer to think most people are good and blocking bad actors is sufficient. Whitelists are for people who believe people are basically bad. I don't think I want to live in that world.
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
The Other Economist
jedmund
Joy Denebeim
Hal
OpenDNA⚙️