Dan Hon

It's perfectly reasonable and possible for *both* of these statements to be true:

* it is better here than on Twitter
* this better *isn't good enough*

Federation and decentralization *as currently and inconsistently and idiosyncratically practiced* while better, are not good enough.

Digging in and saying that decentralization and federation *is* good enough is really, really unhelpful.

Also, the potential for better does not mean the practical experience is better.

Nov 25, 2022 at 10:48pmWeb
Show threadDan HonNov 25, 2022

In my opinion[0], without concerted non-technical work[1] like setting norms, belief in decentralization as an unalloyed good and that "people will moderate and run instances well" will instead mean a gazillion diverse *inconsistent* experiences.

Diversity does not imply predictability, stability or safety to those who require it.

[0] Explicitly *an opinion*
[1] Yes, in concert with technical work from protocol to product to design and the entire stack

Show threadDan HonNov 25, 2022
I acknowledge that this will sound paternalistic, but hoping that people will do the right thing and manage and moderate an instance well is not a plan. It is just hope. Federation and decentralization are but a tool.
Show threadSYRiNX Nov 26, 2022
@danhon - Exactly. Any system that relies upon the good behavior of human participants is a fundamentally broken system.
Show threadDaniel DurransNov 26, 2022

@danhon the more I think about moderation, on anything other than a niche service where a small group can set the rules, the more I think it is a problem that can’t be solved.

We can’t moderate away toxic people. They are still out there, creating a new account or even their own space.

But also what even is a toxic person? My white middle class middle age British cultural definition is likely to be very different from someone who doesn’t have my background and views.

Show threadDaniel DurransNov 26, 2022

@danhon sure there will be similarities in our definition, but is that enough to define a set of rules and standards for a platform that spans across the world.

Whose laws do we follow?
Whose cultural norms?

Show threadSTEMTheBleedingNov 26, 2022

@danieldurrans @danhon For me it's someone who not only doesn't belong to a diverse identity, but also believes that that diverse identity is wrong simply because they don't belong to it.

Just because you don't belong to a group doesn't negate the worth of that group or their collective feelings on subjects such as how Mastodon is moderated or how they're treated on here.

But people tend to think like being correct is a zero sum game, when it's not.

Show threadRant NinjaNov 26, 2022

@danieldurrans @danhon there are certainly some cross-cultural norms but you're right, it's not clear cut.

That said, applying the golden rule is relatively easy. Likewise, ensuring fair & consistent application of the rules.

The bigger issue in creating laws & applying them usually isn't coming up with the "norm" it's that people in power apply the standard to only benefit themselves.

When moderation isn't professionalized it's a major issue, same with policing in the offline world.

Show threadJoshua M. ClulowNov 26, 2022
@danhon It's not paternalism, it's just how people work. If there isn't someone steering the ship it will not go anywhere in particular.
Show threadluddite 🇵🇸 computerNov 27, 2022

@danhon forgive my ignorance, but what are you proposing here? I've read this thread a few times but I'm not sure what point you're trying to put forward.

That the fediverse needs guidelines?

Show threadDan HonNov 25, 2022

I accept that the beauty of federation and decentralization means letting a thousand million different instances and points of view bloom and that ultimately, those instances may be shunned.

AND.

It is also reasonable for people to *want and expect* stability and predictability and guarantees of safety. When you want to replicate that across multiple instances, that might even look like a three-ring-binder franchise model. Software will never do everything.

Show threadDan HonNov 25, 2022

Managing and moderating a community (separate skills, separate jobs, that might also be done by one person) is hard work[0]. It is, I'd argue, inherently human work that can be made easier with tools, but only so much.

(These jobs and skills are also separate from content moderation, for example, separate from dealing with CSAM).

[0] It's not the original definition of emotional labour, though.

Show threadDan HonNov 25, 2022

Training and modeling and feedback about effective, inclusive, responsible, transparent community management is needed as much as technical work, product design and protocol design and so on.

It's being deliberate about how to help instance administrators understand and do what's needed to tend thriving communities, not what sometimes comes across as "leaving the tools out is good enough".

Show threadpacbardNov 26, 2022
@danhon

I don't believe that we can code our way out of a social issue like moderation.

The problem with a federated community like the fediverse is that something that could be completely acceptable in one instance can be unacceptable for another, and both point of views might (should?) coexist in the fediverse.

The question then becomes whose values and views are getting prioritized for moderation and whose ones aren't. Should we go for the union of every moderation request, leading to very strict moderation (leading to a community appropriate for elementary school kids)? Should we go with the union of all requests and moderate only the most extreme content that everyone agrees should not be shared (leading to a lot of people being unhappy with moderation)? Or should we find some middle ground between people that might have very different values?

My biggest worry is that we will settle on option 3 and conclude that moderators will just go "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." (caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/378/184.html).
FindLaw's United States Supreme Court case and opinions.

FindLaw's searchable database of United States Supreme Court decisions since

Findlaw
Show threadMark R. StonemanNov 26, 2022
@danhon It seems to me you are asking far too much of the makers of Mastodon. They make the product, and one might hope they might even be open to developing certain features, if a good case can be made for them, but moderation standards and so on will develop among the community more broadly, if with understandable variations.
Show threadMark R. StonemanNov 26, 2022
@danhon By product, I mean the software, nothing more.
Show threadSandy Piderit PhDNov 27, 2022
@danhon Moderation and modeling of desirable behavior become much more important in time periods when an influx of new users is occurring. Without moderation and modeling, newcomers can import all kinds of dysfunctional behaviors from other communities and not even realize how dramatically they are changing the culture.
Show threadAdmin #FRLDec 23, 2022

@danhon Let me throw a comparison at you:

#Mastodon = a form of #democracy / #diversity

#Twitter = a form of #tirany / #uniformity

When one has a good #tirant, or "the people" can simply only thrive with a strong leader.. one can only hope for a wise tyrant..

It might be because I live in one of the oldest #democratic countries in the world.. but I believe in democracy.. so I tend to favor Mastodon :)

Show threadSilkesterDec 23, 2022

@admin @danhon

Aside from the word tyrant, there are the words: sovereign, autocrat, patriarch, monarch, ...

Show threadAdmin #FRLDec 23, 2022
@silkester @danhon but aren't those all aliases / synonyms ?
Show threadSilkesterDec 23, 2022

@admin @danhon

Nope. Tyranni implies bad government. A single ruler can in theory result in fair and just society.

Show threadAdmin #FRLDec 23, 2022

@silkester @danhon

Sorry, English isn't my first language..

So a "wise tyrant" is a oxymoron?

Show threadSilkesterDec 23, 2022

@admin @danhon

Yes. The translation is so similar that you might have guessed:
tirannie

tyranny = a state under cruel and oppressive government.

--
Kind kings in history according to google:
1) Suleiman I of the Ottoman Empire. November 6, 1494 to September 7, 1566. ...
2) James I of England. November 6, 1494 to September 7, 1566. ...
3) Augustus of Rome. January 16, 27 BC to August 19, AD 14. ...
4) Victoria of the United Kingdom. ...
5) Louis XIV of France. ...
6)Meiji of Japan.

Show threadThe Spoonless KitchenNov 25, 2022

@danhon "belief in decentralization as an unalloyed good and that "people will moderate and run instances well" will instead mean a gazillion diverse *inconsistent* experiences."

So...Reddit, basically. Yes? Let's not go down that road, users of Mastodon. Please.

Show threadDan HonNov 25, 2022
@thespoonless *Even Reddit has base standards that apply across all its equivalent-as-instances*.
Show threadThe Spoonless KitchenNov 25, 2022

@danhon True in theory, but it doesn't seem to be that way in practice; moderators had to "go on strike" to get the administrators (owners) of the website to do something about the COVID-19 disinformation, and even then, it didn't work:

https://www.aol.com/reddit-rejects-moderators-call-harsher-082820378.html

Reddit's advantage over Twitter during the first year of the pandemic was that the disinformation was more siloed, instead of being everywhere, all the time, always on. Until it wasn't.

AOL is part of the Yahoo family of brands

Show threadTomNov 25, 2022
@danhon The Social Construction of Technology requires that we actually do some constructing of these norms and market conditions otherwise, the tech loses out. See also: Betamax.
Show threadBert LatamoreNov 26, 2022
@danhon totally agree. The norms of equal treatment have to be set and published. Change can happen. I remember when schools were segregated, not just in the south but in northern cities like Boston as well.. Then in the late 1959s the federal government under Dwight D. Eisenhower (not exactly a racing liberal) required that they be integrated. I remember news video of lines of dukta screaming at tiny black children being escorted to their first day of school....
Show threadBert LatamoreNov 26, 2022

@danhon

Today integrated schools are the norm and expected.

Show threadChristine HallNov 25, 2022
@danhon There's ALWAYS room for improvement, and if you're not moving toward improvement, you're moving away from it -- because there's really no such thing as standing still.
Show threadDan HonNov 25, 2022
@BrideOfLinux The specific I'm referencing here though is that federation and decentralization are *in and of themselves* the good-enough axes for improvement, and that other axes are practically speaking, negligibly helpful.
Show threadChristine HallNov 25, 2022
@danhon Yes. And that's exactly what I was commenting on. I was agreeing with you, with my on "as I see it".
Show threadDan HonNov 25, 2022
@BrideOfLinux Gotcha!
Show threadChristine HallNov 25, 2022
@danhon Sometimes I'm a little abstract, and I didn't realize that you were getting ready to do some serious point making.
Show threadSuresh RamasubramanianNov 26, 2022
@danhon @BrideOfLinux this touching belief in federation is about as much as of a tall tale as code is law and it’s not a bug, it’s a feature :(
Show threadJoby (chaotic good)Nov 25, 2022
@BrideOfLinux @danhon As I'm fond of saying: "if it isn't broken, it could probably still be improved upon."
Show threadChristine HallNov 25, 2022
@joby @danhon Eggxactly!
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Nov 25, 2022
@danhon all I want is for these places to be honestly critiqued for all their positives and negatives based on real human experience and not some abstracted moralistic idealism, because we’ve done that technocratic idealism before and we know how it obscures the real work.
Show threadSteve WhiteNov 25, 2022
@danhon

When you say "are not good enough", what are you talking about? What is the issue you see here?
Show threadDan HonNov 25, 2022
@stwhite The incredibly shitty experience black people have had when joining Mastodon which includes the response to them sharing their legitimate problems, many of which can be summed up as "well, that's the benefit of decentralization and federation and no central authority, you can move!"
Show threadSteve WhiteNov 26, 2022
@danhon
What sort of solutions do you envision? What kind of responses would you prefer to see?
Show threadJennifer Foehner WellsNov 26, 2022
@stwhite @danhon These are the same questions I have. Because I see a lot of vague complaints and even vaguer arguments but zero solutions offered. Generally if we want something to change we have to state what we think should change to the right people and hope they see it the same way.
Show threadBen CurthoysNov 25, 2022
@danhon the phrase is "necessary but not sufficient".
Show threadDan HonNov 25, 2022
@bencurthoys Did I say it wrong in some way?
Show threadChris PirilloNov 25, 2022
@danhon ...it's good to frame "tech" as a race that never ends. There is no finish line. Moreover, technology becomes an organic (living?) being when you throw people into the mix. Always adapting, evolving - requiring care, guidance. Never finished. Never done. Never ending.
Show threadDan HonNov 25, 2022
@ChrisPirillo That's the thing, though. Framing this as "tech" is actually one of the problems we've learned over the last 30 years. It's not just a "tech" problem. It is a people problem, which *also* never ends.
Show threadChris PirilloNov 25, 2022
@danhon ...I agree - and if my concision glosses over the nuance, it's inadvertent. Tech is an enabler. It's nothing without the people who build it, nothing without the people who use it. To that end, it's always a people problem. We make it go, but only when it works with us in mind - and accommodates. It won't magically solve problems we, ourselves, aren't willing to solve with it.
Show threadJordan KanarekNov 26, 2022

@ChrisPirillo @danhon

What sometimes gets lost is that people decide if a product/project is viable, and they do so over time.

As the diversity of a user base increases, more people get a chance to determine if a product is/isn't good enough.

In a commercial setting, addressing these emergent MVP gaps becomes a corporate imperative, since there is a bottom line to worry about. In open-source, it's a little more difficult...since devs have more power to gate-keep.

Show threadJordan KanarekNov 26, 2022

@ChrisPirillo @danhon

And it's just a little harder for those "un-viable" people to feel like they should wait it out if they aren't hearing a "we're working on it" message when they voice their concerns, but are instead greeted with skepticism (i.e. "works great for me")

Tactically it'd be great to do stuff like give non-technical people greater visibility into in-flight efforts and changelogs, so that they understand that there *is* momentum and that their feedback *is* important.

Show threadSTEMTheBleedingNov 26, 2022

@danhon @ChrisPirillo This.

Social media is people connected via technology.

Not technology connected via people.

Show threadThornbill9Nov 25, 2022
@danhon I don’t actually believe it’s better here is a universal experience. Certainly I find this place far less useful than pre musk twitter. I actually find the base culture insular, uncurious to other perspectives, and fixated on a caricature of twitter that can be solved with technological architecture, when the root of social networks are about people. What is admirable about open source api is the ability for users to customize, but must respect that their preferences aren’t universal
Show threadDan HonNov 25, 2022

@thornbill9 No, it's not better here universally. There's ample experience that for some people it's worse than Twitter.

The ability to customize doesn't necessarily do enough about base, uncurious perspectives, and also supports a technocratic approach, that responsibility ends with providing tools.

Show threadkkellerNov 25, 2022
@danhon obviously people's experiences vary, but I've found my practical experience on Mastodon better than on Twitter. Not hugely better, to be sure, but still better. I may certainly be an outlier in that regard.
Show threadDan HonNov 25, 2022

@kkeller My point being that if you want this new network to thrive, then it has to be better than just for you, it has to be better for everyone.

Right now, it's distressingly replicating or even doing worse than other networks in supporting marginalized people, *especially* people of colour.

Show threadkkellerNov 25, 2022
@danhon sorry, I was only addressing your last point about practicality, not meaning to dispute your other points.
Show threadDan HonNov 25, 2022
@kkeller Yes, practically speaking *your* experience is better here, and practically speaking the *implementation of moderation and management is inconsistent, inconsistent and opaque, which has led to other peoples' practical experience being worse.
Show threadSlytanicusNov 26, 2022
@danhon @kkeller when you say marginalized I can't help but think you assume us "minorities", I'm African, can't navigate or even handle the many perils of the internet. I find such generalisation off putting, make specific claims but please don't lump everyone not wyt as marginalized please
Show threadeLearningTechieNov 26, 2022
@kkeller @danhon you're not an outlier.
I'm having a great time. I spend a lot of time in the local and fed timelines every day saying hi to anyone who posts about feeling lost or daunted.
It's up to all of us - every single one - to make this a welcoming and friendly place. And I'm doing my utmost to make it so. Why? Because I genuinely care about ordinary people and I care about the admins and mods, easing their load just a little where I can.
Show threadBenNov 25, 2022
@danhon what's good enough? I don't think it's got much to do with central vs not, and I don't think centralized (and inevitably, for profit) can really achieve it. I think some of the decentralized islands might?
Really good food for thought