NirdigantaNov 25, 2022

Been following this critique with a lot of interest & have a hot take.

Mastodon is unbearably white only if you're unbearably American. It's refreshingly not yet Americanized for many from the Global South with American Discourse™️ all over our TL.
🧵

https://techpolicy.press/the-whiteness-of-mastodon/

The Whiteness of Mastodon

A conversation with Dr. Johnathan Flowers about Elon Musk's changes at Twitter and the dynamics on Mastodon, the decentralized alternative.

Tech Policy Press
Show threadNirdigantaNov 25, 2022
This is not to say that "make your own instance" isn't racist or that Black users haven't been subjected to racist frames of CWs/TWs or had their posts censored. But Black Twitter also thrived under a centralized tech regime & is a little lost with decentralized UX/UI designed specifically antithetical to Twitter.
Show threadNirdigantaNov 25, 2022

If Black Twitter emerged as offline Black discursive practices leveraging Twitter's technological affordances (cf. Brock, 'Distributed Blackness') then migrating this collective to Mastodon, i.e. anti-Twitter will be fraught.

I am also struck by Flowers' framing of Black Twitter as a "gathering place" & "commons." This is an American luxury. Indian Twitter is a morass of censorship, RW trolls, misogyny, hate speech. Mastodon has been a respite for many who don't experience Twitter as a commons.

Show threadNirdiganta
Like I haven't yet come across Sanghi Mastodon, which is incredible to me. I think the decentralized logic, the various instances, the RW's inability to manipulate trends & go viral all work in our favor. Mastodon is a potential haven-in-the-making for Indian progressives.
Nov 25, 2022 at 6:03pmWeb
Show threadNirdigantaNov 25, 2022
As one of hundreds of Indians who migrated in 2019 because Indian Twitter was flooded with trolls & actively censoring anti-BJP critique & anti-caste handles, having Mastodon instantly respond to hate speech, casteism, trolling suggested possibilities. Possibilities that were entirely outside the American (white/Black) experience of Twitter discourse.
Show threadNirdigantaNov 25, 2022

I get that Black Twitter is uninterested in Global South encounters with racist, fascist hate speech, but that also reveals Black Twitter's fundamentally American gaze.

Even more American is this framing of "Marginalized users self-moderating will subject themselves to violence." Who is currently moderating violent content on Twitter? Marginalized Global South workers, employed in highly precarious Big Tech fronts in far-flung corners of Asia.

Show threadNirdigantaNov 25, 2022
This amusing use of "warrior caste" aside (Mastodon has been welcomed specifically by anti-caste users, I should remind us all), it's mighty convenient to stay quiet on the costs of moderation for the desperately employed invisible labor that has kept Twitter, even Black Twitter, running all these years, but point it out only when the question of self-moderation arises. A very American convenience.
Show threadNirdigantaNov 25, 2022

Mastodon does have to figure out the various avatars of anti-Black discourse here & train mods to catch them swiftly & effectively, but with non-American volunteers serving as mods, the valence of American anti-Blackness is going to take some time & resources to figure out.

And just as a caveat, I'm not necessarily a Mastodon fan. It's a platform still in the making. I'm just wary of dismissing its potential just yet. And yes, I'm a little tired of American Twitter always on my TL.👀

Show threadAlistair DavidsonNov 25, 2022

@SevenDeviled thanks for a really interesting thread.

A frame I am trying is that Mastodon makes moderation explicitly political again. It is within our reach, not at the whim of a corporation.

The moderation can be bad. It can be racist. It can be anything. The only moderation advantage over twitter et al is that we can genuinely fight for it to change, rather than one racist being able to buy it and decide all the policies.

Show threadNirdigantaNov 25, 2022
@moh_kohn I agree, and perhaps the great potential here is to educate each other on what hate speech looks like in different corners of the world with different social formations & politics. That can happen if a diverse group of moderators are pro-active & constantly updating their moderation practices & guidelines.
Show threadChandersNov 25, 2022
@SevenDeviled @moh_kohn thanks so much for this.
Show threadSarahanne M. FieldNov 25, 2022
@SevenDeviled thanks so much for sharing this, I learned a lot and it made me think!
Show threadLoukas (They/Them) 🏳️‍⚧️Nov 25, 2022
@smirandafield @SevenDeviled me too
Show threaddingodogNov 27, 2022
@Loukas @smirandafield @SevenDeviled and me
Show threadClaire QNov 26, 2022

@SevenDeviled

This is an interesting perspective. I was sick of American Twitter all over my timeline too.

This exchange wasn’t about race, but there was a lot of talk about CWs for political talk. A lot of Americans were saying they wouldn’t use them, because their politics affected all of us. There was no concept that we are not that interested in having it endlessly discussed.

Show threadJustin HendrixNov 26, 2022
@SevenDeviled thanks for this
Show threadJustin HendrixNov 26, 2022
@SevenDeviled if you'd be interested in expanding on your ideas at Tech Policy Press sometime let me know!
Show threadKommadieb 🌆Nov 28, 2022
@SevenDeviled Thanks. Really interesting perspective! Esp. agree with the last part. The platform is in the making, not perfect, you don't have to be a fan; but we have the chance do build something better. Again, for some folks (unfortunately) this will be harder than for others. But premature dismissal isn't the solution, and yet another commercial silo neither.
Show threadBoudNov 29, 2022

@kommadieb @SevenDeviled

For followers of this thread unfamiliar with Sangh Parivar (or Sanghi, as in 'Sanghi Mastodon') and the party in central (federal) power in the world's largest democracy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangh_Parivar

Sangh Parivar - Wikipedia

Show thread猫好きな人Nov 29, 2022
@SevenDeviled
It’s very interesting to hear you say that. Perhaps it was because of who I followed on Twitter (Rana Ayyub especially) that my experience of Indian Twitter was exactly as you say: a flood of BJP accounts on almost any India-related topic.
Show threadNandhaNov 25, 2022
@SevenDeviled Two attempts were made. One was an instance called Inditoot, which was defederated right during the 2019 migration. They still pitch another instance called Tooter, which sprung sometimes in mid 2020, and many longtime Indian users blocked the instance right then. Not sure if .social and .online have defederated now.
https://mastodon.social/@ionhandshaker/105264210763646558
Show threadNirdigantaNov 25, 2022
@ionhandshaker This is some fascinating digital history & very much worth keeping our eye out for before they start organizing to propagandize here.
Show threadNandhaNov 25, 2022
@SevenDeviled I've been using it for sometime now, and the antiviral design of Mastodon makes it difficult to amass people in large numbers, and that makes it difficult for the conventional Hindutva playbook. Let's see how things play out. And from an Indian perspective, the discourse has largely been anticaste so far, not populated by the standup comedy style caste based jokes that you saw on early Twitter. Been hopeful about Mastodon for a few years now. Don't know how it'll turn out.
Show threadNirdigantaNov 25, 2022
@ionhandshaker Yes, I feel the same. And it's less stressful than twitter where the feeling of being bombarded is pretty regular for me.
Show threadPirate Praveen 普拉文Nov 26, 2022
@SevenDeviled there used to be a right wing mastodon instance but seems it went down
Show threadPeter Griffin ☕Nov 28, 2022
@SevenDeviled There was an attempt to get RW Twitter to join something called Tooter (dot in), which was built on GAB, which was forked from Mastodon.
Show threadabhijithNov 29, 2022
@SevenDeviled There were nasty sanghis in inditoot. I heard they were defederated.