Mastodawn

Ahri Boy (archived)Apr 27, 2023

@fribbledom we don't even know if Bluesky instances would moderate and defederate content from other instances

@ahriboy @fribbledom Sadly it appears they won't moderate hate speech, and will continue the techbro "freedom of speech, not freedom of reach" dogma:
https://mastodon.social/@hughster/110259609667652608

@hughster @ahriboy @fribbledom They are moderating it, by not showing it.

@ekana @ahriboy @fribbledom But it's still there. They'll still be able to recruit and organise, as well as harass and stalk people even if what they're saying is hidden.

@hughster @ahriboy @fribbledom At best they can stalk, they can't really harass because the user (whose presumably hiding these bad actors through there algorithm) wont even see them saying things on there post. Sure they may be able to organize, but they can organize on mastodon too, they can organize and recruit anywhere on the internet.

@ekana @ahriboy @fribbledom And they can still harass, because they could easily marshall other users on the network who haven't yet been hate-flagged, as well as targeting the huge numbers of users who've neglected to flick the hate switch to "off".

They can organise on Mastodon, yes, but on tiny walled-off servers where all they can see and reach is other extremists. There's no reason to give them another huge mainstream platform to use.

@hughster @ahriboy @fribbledom the hate switch is off by default. So no chance someone will have it on unless someone intentionally turns it on. They don't know whether they've been flagged or not to really coordinate in such a way, but at that point it's just a brigade, and again that can happen on all networks. It's at that point that your block button should be ready, and your provider would come in for assistance.

Hughster

@ekana @ahriboy @fribbledom I think it'd be quite easy to figure out whether or not you've been flagged by whether or not you're able to elicit replies from any "normies".

@hughster @ahriboy @fribbledom possibly, but I mean that's a degree of difficulty these trolls would have to deal with. More likey they'd just make an alt account built to harass with, but, that can be done already.

@ekana @ahriboy @fribbledom It can. But this doesn't change the fact that they're on the same platform, replying to all your stuff directly, marshalling others to try to dox you etc. in your own threads, and all you have to do to turn your social media site into a dangerous extremist cesspit and be flooded with vile notifications is to flick a single switch.

If you're going to have moderators to flag extremists, why not just have them kick them and their content off? Why won't BS do that?

@hughster @ahriboy @fribbledom because they aren't centralized, they are federated, on like two layers. Distribution is provided by a provider, and what you physically see is provided by another entity. Both of these are of your choosing. The labels are for all content across the nodes. Bluesky may just boot those guys, but that doesn't stop them from spooling up another server.

@ekana @ahriboy @fribbledom But the Fediverse shows that a federated system can remove this content, both by removing it from instances and defederating from other instances that won't remove it.

@hughster @ahriboy @fribbledom Yeah, and I doubt that's impossible on Bluesky (could be tho). I'm sure the indexer you chose can choose not to crawl from certain distributors.

@ekana @ahriboy @fribbledom If it turns out that you can't, would it be truly federated at all?

@hughster @ahriboy @fribbledom yes, it's still multiple independent nodes working in consort.

@ekana @ahriboy @fribbledom Personally, I'd say that federation would require that such nodes choose which other nodes to connect to. Otherwise, it'd just be distribution, surely?

@hughster @ahriboy @fribbledom Not by any definition that I'm looking up right now (just so I could be sure). But to be fare we can just say they are decentralized and leave it at that (or at least plan to be).

@ekana @ahriboy @fribbledom And I'm not sure that this does happen on Mastodon, or at least not on this server. The moderation is so quick and so effective that I've seen next to zero extremist content here since I joined.