Maggie MacIntyreNov 27, 2022

Good morning! A post just rolled across my fedi-timeline saying not to post about politics on Mastodon, so I'm here to remind you that:

1 "politics" refers to decision-making about how to live together in groups
2 choosing to not participate in political discussion is saying you support the status quo, and is a political stance
3 abstaining from politics because you feel safe from its impacts is a privilege and a choice to abandon your more vulnerable neighbours

Show threadJonChevreau 🇨🇦Nov 27, 2022
@inkstainedmags perhaps a good compromise is to use CW for all political posts?
Show threadCassandrichNov 27, 2022
@JonChevreau @inkstainedmags No. That's more of the same toxicity. The compromise is to unfollow or mute people talking about things you dislike hearing about.
Show threadAnnika BackstromNov 27, 2022

@dalias CW allows someone to decide if they want to read a post in that moment. Requiring them to unfollow/mute is asking them to permanently remove themselves from the conversation. The latter feels very heavy-handed and exclusionary, and overall disrespectful on the part of the author.

Notice how I gave you a short subject line, letting you opt-in to reading my opinion? Same deal.

Show threadSimon BoyneNov 27, 2022
@annika @dalias can't they do a soft mute which allows them to expand the post if they want to take part in the conversion?
Show threadHerzleid

@SimonB @dalias Only on Mastodon v4 instances. The option "Filter: show anyway" isn't available to everyone. (Hometown, for example, doesn't have this yet.)

Not using CWs means people have to opt out completely, instead of engaging at-some-point-but-maybe-not-right-now.

You can unveil a whole thread of CWs with the eye icon – one click per conversation.

Nov 27, 2022 at 5:38pmWeb