Mastodon•ART 🎨 CuratorDec 26, 2022

We've silenced mastodon.se and will suspend in a week.

https://blog.mastodon.se/inl%C3%A4gg/%C3%A5siktspolis/

This is a blog post by the admin of mastodon.se where they acknowledge that they have 'anti-political-correctness' accounts, anti-abortionists, harassers, etc. (there are neo-nazi adjacent accounts on there), saying they won't action their accounts because they don't want to be the 'thought police'.

As these kinds of accounts directly threaten the safety of the marginalised people on .art, we'll be defederating.

Åsiktspolis

Update clarification: I want to re-affirm that Mastodon.se has rules against xenophobia, transphobia, among other things, and we will uphold these rules. Nothing has changed on that front. The users who inspired this post had not broken any of those rules. This post was made to try and define how Mastodon.se will handle when reports come in for accounts that are simply openly affiliated with a certain political party, without having broken any rules yet.

Show threadSheila DeBonisDec 26, 2022
@Curator This is an instance that serves Swedes and Swedish speakers, I take it? I am somewhat surprised that the "skinhead" demographic is growing, as Sweden had been such a liberating stalwart for progressive ideology. But attitudes change, and fascist, authoritarian nationalism has come into fashion across other large nations, like India, China, Hungary, Turkey, and (especially) Russia. Good on you for taking action. I hope the good Swedes find a new instance.
Show threadDay
@sheiladebonis @Curator That's what sucks about this, I think. A lot of people who have nothing to do with this stuff will also get defederated.
Dec 26, 2022 at 10:59pmWeb
Show threadMastodon•ART 🎨 CuratorDec 26, 2022
@thymos @sheiladebonis Then they should approach the instance admin and demand they do better, or move to an instance that doesn't tolerate hate speech. :)
Show threadDayDec 27, 2022

@Curator @sheiladebonis Sure, but meanwhile they've been blocked, right?

I'm on a big server, bad stuff could happen here beyond my control and without my knowledge, and then I would get defederated. And then I would have to move to another server or complain and wait for stuff to change. It just sucks.

I'm sure that the vast majority of users on that server did nothing wrong but they do have to suffer the consequences. And it might scare people off of the platform.

Show threadPaul H (he/him)Dec 27, 2022
@thymos @Curator @sheiladebonis it's not difficult to join a new instance and why would anyone want to continue to support an instance that believes in giving support to openly hateful individuals? Many folks have no issue leaving a place that gives leeway to hate.
Show threadKelli Blue 📸Dec 27, 2022

@thymos @Curator @sheiladebonis my prior mastodon experience was on a server that had been limited or defederated by much of the fediverse, and the instance eventually shut down on 30 days notice even though it was the 3rd most popular mastodon server 🤷🏼‍♀️

So federated social media may have a good case that “no oligarch can buy it and ruin it”, but it’s still too unstable for the average, mainstream social media user 🤷🏼‍♀️

Show threadJoy DenebeimDec 27, 2022
@thymos @Curator @sheiladebonis the size of the user base is one of the deciding factors of whether to defederate or not. If your server got the federated that's because they were causing damage to other people and refusing to do something about it for long enough time that it's worth losing that many people
Show threadOctavia con AmoreDec 27, 2022
@thymos
@Curator @sheiladebonis
If you're on an instance where you're not sure whether the admin will take a stand against Nazism, I'd recommend moving to an instance where you are. As large as mastodon.lol is (77k?) and as many users as might be on it, I have a fair amount of confidence that our admin and mods will generally act in a way that keeps us federated with the instances I care to interact with, and mastodon.art looks that way as well.
Show threadja2ui0Dec 27, 2022

@thymos @sheiladebonis @Curator This is a wildly underrated comment and should bubble up.

I've noticed a trend toward defederation and I'm not about to stake my reputation, as insignificant as it is, on an opinion about what merits federation and what doesn't.

What concerns me is the effort made to tell refugees to "just pick an instance and everything will be fine" when picking an instance is not easy, and everything will NOT be fine.

Show threadDayDec 27, 2022
@jq @sheiladebonis @Curator Indeed! When I was looking into Mastodon and choosing an instance, I had no clue about what's what. There's no way to tell how the admins will deal with situations in the future, especially all the admins of all the other instances you may want to follow accounts from. And yet this may have been a crucial choice.
Show threadja2ui0Dec 27, 2022

@thymos @sheiladebonis @Curator

I'm sorry to type this as I type it anyway, but I'm pretty sure I have close to zero faith in the ability of instance owners and their trusted mods to differentiate good faith from a sack of scrambled eggs.

That's really the only part of the Fediverse that I dislike. I don't trust the people in charge, including if that person is me.

Show threadDayDec 27, 2022
@jq @sheiladebonis @Curator Yeah, that's the problem. I've definitely made some bad decisions myself as a moderator in the past, and it would be wholly unfair if thousands of others would have to pay the price for that.
Show threadja2ui0Dec 27, 2022

@thymos @sheiladebonis @Curator and around the drain we swirl.

I detest behavior that harms marginalized people. I respect the right for those same people to participate in communities, if they like, where encounters with detestable people are inevitable.

Instance moderation makes us all children to a parent entity which controls content.

I think community moderation is important, and not a responsibility to be taken lightly. I think silencing thousands of people...

1/2

Show threadKelley GrahamDec 28, 2022
@sheiladebonis @jq @Curator defederation does not silence anybody. It is simply a choice to not listen to awful stuff. Let’s be clear at what’s really going on here.