Dr. Cynthia Alease Smith💡I am reading where #black people are being mistreated on Mastodon. The instance I chose, "mindly.social," appears to be very welcoming. I have not received any adverse reactions to my posts from anyone. I suppose it depends on the individual #fedicommunity.
wb x64@DrCAleaseSmith it really really does and one of the Fediverse's biggest challenges is a reputation system so that new users can pick anti-bigoted instances and admins can preemptively isolate and remove bad behavior before it starts and we don't have to continually be posting about it in order to have new people be aware of old misdeeds.
@DrCAleaseSmith the other huge issue is "Schrodinger's Racist": during a big influx of brand new users we have no way of knowing who's who until they post. They have no reputation, they could very well be proven bigots making a new account. They could be vulnerable and marginalized and have PTSD. Only once someone has caused harm can they be identified as a bad actor and removed, so that's at least one harassment incident per racist. We need vetting processes, like signup surveys.
@DrCAleaseSmith above and beyond the good vibes of mindly.social and its admins, those admins also need to be proactively blocking racist servers. Otherwise anyone in the world can see your posts and reply to you, just like if you posted your email address where anyone could find it. Your good experience depends on responsive, anti-racist mindly.social admins who work to keep you safe. Make a relationship with them, see who they are, see if they tend to implement "fediblocks."