Mastodawn

So there's been a Bluesky vs. Masto convo in my mentions for the last couple of days, and it's made something very clear.

White men have this strange loyalty to Mastodon but not a better fedi itself. And they project this loyalty onto anyone that even considers Bluesky, no matter what cultural background they come from.

I have my own reasons for not considering Bluesky, but there's this nasty implication that Black and Brown people should be grateful for Masto despite the fact people loyal to that project have repeatedly run us off with no remorse.

This massive cultural gulf is at the core of why the fedi can't get out of its way and be the next evolution on public social media.

There's enough room here for everyone to have their communities, but the willful ignorance that often leads this discussion and projects in the fedi has us running in circles.

Ro Apr 29, 2023

By and large, the fedi has not been a safe and better experience for Black and Brown, which is why BlueSky is getting traction.

If you are serious about the fedi becoming the defacto experience for social media on they web, you need to take this seriously instead of trying to lecture people based on myopic quasi-leftist principles based on an anecdotal perspective.

BlueSky may not be a viable option but many Black and Brown folks know Masto and by extension, the fedi isn't for them, so they are open to giving it a try.

The fedi has repeatedly shown it does not want to change, so I can't and won't blame anyone for giving BlueSky a hard look.

Mr. Mustache Apr 29, 2023

@Are0h as a recent transplant to Mastodon I am unfortunately uninformed of the actions driving folks away but I sure hope to help prevent or call out such behavior in the future.

youknowthatonepersonwithaface Apr 29, 2023

@Are0h I am in no way sealioning when I ask this, I legit want to learn more on the topic and I was hoping you could link me some stuff to read on breaks from work if you have a chance. My godbrother has been asking about my experience here and twitter alternatives recently, but I've seen a few posts like this that make me feel sketchy about recommending Mastodon.

Ro Apr 29, 2023

@Thatonepersonwithaface LOL, so... you're response is to ask me to supply you with reading material you can check out at your convenience.

Consider that for a second.

youknowthatonepersonwithaface Apr 29, 2023

@Are0h Sorry, wasn't trying to be rude, I work several jobs and am not on here much other than the occasional post, I might check my feed or my neighborhood (is that the right term?), I just thought you might have links to information so I could read some accounts to give my godbrother some better info than I can provide. Again, didn't mean to be rude.

Ro Apr 29, 2023

@Thatonepersonwithaface I think that information will be far more valuable to you and enlightening if you took the challenge of exploring and reading what people are saying, especially Black and Brown folks.

Not talking or interjecting but just listening to the perspective and views of people outside of your own identity.

It will be a very enriching journey. Promise.

Daniel Brotherston May 2, 2023

@Are0h @Thatonepersonwithaface He literally asked you what to read...getting angry and telling him he should read what people are saying is...confusing...to put it generously.

youknowthatonepersonwithaface May 2, 2023

@danbrotherston @Are0h well as I said in another comment, I can kinda get where they're coming from, just because I get tired of it myself, plenty of times talking to regulars, I've encouraged them to read something about the subject they're speaking on, usually some imaginary bullshit they've heard from conservatives about sexual and/or gender identity, and they'll maybe glance at it, but stay firmly entrenched in their position, so it's not hard to imagine when someone asks for sources, what they're really just doing is wasting your time.

Also, not to nitpick, am not a he. Though I know the old adage that everyone on the internet is a man

Simon Frankau Apr 30, 2023

@Thatonepersonwithaface I think part of the problem with Mastodon is that it's harder than I'd like to find black people to listen to. It gets really tempting to hassle black people for more info, because Masto search is poor. And at that point well-intentioned people have made life worse for black users.

Personally, I think Mekka is a great starting point - e.g. https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/109456069813329422 He writes a lot and links to other black voices. He's helped me learn by listening.

mekka okereke :verified: (@[email protected])

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] The best way today, is to follow a bunch of Black users and see their experience. As I've pointed out this is very insufficient, as it means that many Black users experience N*zis first, then move to a better server. I've been online for many years, so I'm used to N*zis and their death threats. But for many Black users, this experience is jarring. Worse than the N*zis, is the "regular users." https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/109388611222845153

Hachyderm.io

Mihaela MJ Apr 29, 2023

@Are0h What is fedi?

Oliver Ghingold Apr 29, 2023

@mihaelamj
@Are0h

Short for "fediverse", which refers to all the interconnected web apps that use the ActivityPub protocol. Mastodon is one of the largest ones, but there's also PeerTube, PixelFed, Friendica, and even WordPress blogs if you configure them to federate!

Mihaela MJ Apr 29, 2023

@emceebois @Are0h thanks

Remco.py Apr 29, 2023

@emceebois @mihaelamj @Are0h
And other protocols. There's an overview at https://fediverse.party/

- Fediverse.Party - explore federated networks

Let's make social media free, federated and fun! Fediverse.Party is your guide into the world of decentralized, autonomous networks running on free open software on a myriad of servers across the world. No ads and no algorithms. Join Fediverse and become part of the new interconnected Web!

AnthonyJK-Admin Apr 29, 2023

I have my own issues with Bluesky other than racial that would probably discourage me from using that app anyway.

Also, even those who are gravitating to Bluesky are finding the same paternalism and conceit that led them to escape Twitter in the first place, even if they are rediscovering the creature comforts they had back then that Mastodon lacked for them.

Spoutible is becoming more of the hot thing for them now due to the branding of being Black-owned.

Christopher Apr 29, 2023

@AnthonyJK
I remember some very compelling arguments by Dr. Jonathan Flowers as to why black run fedi servers with a focus on black safety was a failure on the rest of the Fediverse's part, with the central issue being ghettoization. I'm not hopeful, in light of that argument, that black owned centralized social media solves the issue.

It just sounds like auto-defederation to me.

But if it works, it works. And it's not like most people my skin tone or lighter (err, maybe that's too restrictive, as I glow blue in the sun) paid him, or any other black folks who have been here for days or years, any attention.
@Are0h

AnthonyJK-Admin Apr 29, 2023

Sorry, but that "ghettoization" argument is pure liberal "Free Speech Absolutism" bullshit.

The idea that Black Fediverse users must get used to racist harassment and overly restrictive and corrosive admins just to satisfy the center of a mythical bell curve of users is hogwash.

Separate safe spaces are more than justified in this time of right-wing assault on the marginalized.

Christopher Apr 29, 2023

@AnthonyJK
I mean, that's sort of my core reasoning, too, but his argument isn't so different from what I've seen Ro argue a hundred times or more now: That the Fediverse will remain stunted until people of colour, and black folks/Black Twitter in particular, are safe across the core of the network while also being embedded across that core.

Maybe his arguments lose some impact if we accept that a fractured microblogging ecosystem is just what's going to happen now. But "there's no reason for black folks to come here, and digital red-lining isn't the solution everyone in my mentions thinks it is" seemed like a pretty cogent argument to me in my naive and ignorant paleness.
@Are0h

AnthonyJK-Admin Apr 29, 2023

But that then goes to the heart of my original argument about centralization vs. decentralization; because if you are wanting to prevent such red-lining and protect Black folk across the core of your app, then doesn't that essentially cut across the flank of decentralization and requires a central authority to set and enforce the rules across the spectrum?

Christopher Apr 29, 2023

@AnthonyJK
I think it was more of a call for white liberals to stop patting themselves on the back for not being racists while simultaneously talking down to people of colour because they want certain things.

But maybe I've misinterpreted his point, or am conveying it poorly. I'd tag him in to correct me, but I haven't seen him post anything in months now.
@Are0h

Ro Apr 29, 2023

@kichae @AnthonyJK The point Dr. Flowers has made revolves around the lack of consideration for safety in these spaces.

And my point has always been that technology doesn't matter if that will is nonexistent.

And if the fedi fractures because of specific instances of not wanting to take safety seriously, I'm okay with that.

It's a point about building community, not ‘digital-redlining.’ The technology needs to follow intent, not the other way around.

AnthonyJK-Admin Apr 30, 2023

Point acknowledged and well taken.

WndlB Apr 30, 2023

@Are0h Reporting/blocking has been ineffective? And I am not lecturing; I am sincerely asking.

Eric Redegeld💻🏎️☀️🙋💖Apr 30, 2023

@Are0h ??? Crap. Its open for all

Ro Apr 30, 2023

@redegelde LOL, let me know when you come back from your temper tantrum.

Eric Redegeld💻🏎️☀️🙋💖Apr 30, 2023

@Are0h Please use text all can understand. And if you think that you could be saver else where. Be my guest. Otherwise warm welcome at the #fediverse. Where you can start your own #instance on any topic you want.

T. Emil Rivera-Thorsen Apr 30, 2023

@Are0h I had never heard of BlueSky before, but if I see it correctly, they also are portable/network agnostic, build on open standards and fully interoperable - so if this is true, I see no technical reason to prefer one over the other.

Is there any good places of entry for someone ignorant to learn about the problems with the Fediverse for people of color? Perhaps naively, I cling on to hope that this can change but obviously, the onus is not on the prospective Black/Brown users to fix.

Ro Apr 30, 2023

@thriveth You mean other than following and listening to Black and Brown? Ha, not there is no big book of grievances that can be perused at your leisure.

Just follow some people, read their stories, and listen.

T. Emil Rivera-Thorsen Apr 30, 2023

@Are0h Or you could just not mock me for not already knowing what you know but OK, you do you.

Ro Apr 30, 2023

@thriveth Which is why suggested following some people.

Do it or don't. That's up to you.

T. Emil Rivera-Thorsen Apr 30, 2023

If it were obvious to me who to follow, I wouldn't have asked. But you were clearly not the right place to ask for a pointer. Good day and goodbye.

Ro Apr 30, 2023

@thriveth You didn't take for people to follow. You asked where you could learn about ‘people of color’ like there's some zoo exhibit I could point you to.

When you get over your temper tantrum, I'll be here.

T. Emil Rivera-Thorsen Apr 30, 2023

@Are0h I didn't ask for any "zoo exhibit", I asked for entry points to learn about the problems people of color have experienced here.

But let's just agree to part ways here, this is clearly not productive.

Ro Apr 30, 2023

@thriveth And I told you how to get that information.

No one is keeping you here.

T. Emil Rivera-Thorsen Apr 30, 2023

@Are0h Technically speaking, I guess you did.

Ro Apr 30, 2023

@thriveth I get my tone is sarcastic but it's not malicious.

People ask me for info all the time but I'm skeptical of their motivations, which is why I usually tell people to actually go listen to people.

The problems on here are nuanced and complex and cannot be easily summarized.

T. Emil Rivera-Thorsen Apr 30, 2023

@Are0h I get that, and I actually also understand your skepticism. The hitch is, when I am asking, it's because I barely even know whom to follow and where to find them. Not every POC concern themselves with these questions or want to spend their energy on them, and following people just because they are Black, expecting them to be resources for this, feels awfully like tokenization. Which was why I was hoping perhaps there were some quick recommendations of good places to start...

T. Emil Rivera-Thorsen Apr 30, 2023

@Are0h ...Recommendations which could ideally be valuable starting points for me, while not requiring an awful lot of mental clock cycles for someone like yourself who look like you have them at the front of your mind anyway.

Ro Apr 30, 2023

@thriveth Don't make assumptions about what occupies my mind. You are sure to be wrong.

T. Emil Rivera-Thorsen Apr 30, 2023

@Are0h That's what the words "look like" are there to mark. Is it unreasonable to think that someone who writes confidently about a topic, *might* have some good pointers to entry points to beginners?

Ro Apr 30, 2023

@thriveth It's unreasonable to assume that's all one thinks about based what they see online. "Looks like" isn't necessarily congruent with what actually is.

And there are plenty of basic entry points. I'm not the end all be all of the fediverse.

T. Emil Rivera-Thorsen Apr 30, 2023

@Are0h Why on Earth would I assume that is all you think about? I don't think I have given you any reason to believe that. I just reached out to someone who looked like he knew what he was talking about on the off chance he might have a few quick pointers to share about some good places to start - something I would happily have given myself in questions I know something about. "Sorry, can't help you there" would have been a perfectly legitimate answer.

Ro Apr 30, 2023

@thriveth shrug I don't know why you would assume that, but you seem pretty upset about your perceived lack of assistance when I've given you adequate direction.

But for whatever reason, because I didn't answer you in the way you thought I should, you seem ready to dismiss it all together.

Ha, and that's your perogative, man. It's not my problem you don't like when Black folks don't give you the benefit of the doubt.

But you'll be ok. Ha, you're not in any danger. Walk it off.

T. Emil Rivera-Thorsen Apr 30, 2023

@Are0h Again, the word *might* says the exact opposite of assumption. I don't know why you're so hell bent on making me come off as a shitty entitled dude that you will just straight up make shit up just to make it fit your narrative, but I am done with it. I thought for a second there that we were entering a place of good faith but clearly I was overly optimistic.

Bynkii May 2, 2023

@thriveth @Are0h you also seem to want people to do a lot of real work for your benefit sans any payment.

Bynkii May 2, 2023

@thriveth @Are0h have you perhaps thought of going into listen-only mode with Black folks on mastodon. Try it. For the next 30 days, actively seek and find Black people to follow on mastodon, but don’t reply.

Just listen. Just read. Take in what they are saying for 30 days.

Might help.

T. Emil Rivera-Thorsen Apr 30, 2023

@Are0h But for the record, no, I was not looking for a "Big Book of Grievances", but perhaps suggestions of people to follow, or threads that treat the problems particularly well.

LG Media Apr 30, 2023

@Are0h What I keep hearing is that people need to find welcoming instances, or channels, rather than the “main hallway” where trolls lurk. I’m still finding my way around, and found big differences between the mobile app vs. desktop.

Tim Kellogg May 2, 2023

@Are0h I don’t have any opinions in this area, but I’ve certainly noticed the fedi being very resistant to change, especially (specifically) around race

Uncle 6 🌁Apr 29, 2023

@Are0h the thing I don’t think a lot of fedi advocates get is that nobody’s going to move until they can find the people they want there. 90% of the people I want to follow from Twitter are still there, and will stay there until it’s worth posting somewhere else because no one wants to post across three different servers.

I will vote for any 2024 candidate who promises to grind Elon into meatloaf and hand control of Twitter over to Black Twitter as a down payment on reparations…

Calamity Beast Seydlitz Apr 29, 2023

@Are0h You'll always be welcome in any community I run, my friend. Thanks for speaking up.

Orc Apr 29, 2023

@Are0h I think that the stack of programs that make up Mastodon may be beyond redemption. Thankfully it doesn't contaminate the underlying transport layer.

rick Apr 29, 2023

@Are0h Is it that BlueSky is already a safer place than Mastodon or that there is hope that it will become so?

OutOnTheMoors Apr 29, 2023

@Are0h There's a definite Gamergate/Google Manifesto vibe to Mastodon. You get plenty of "oh, but you can't mean ME" white guys in your mentions if you bother to raise this point.

Bill Woodcock Apr 29, 2023

@Are0h

I think Mastodon, per se, the specific open-source project, is a straw man, and one which encourages un-useful debate. What matters, in my opinion, is the difference between open protocols and proprietary ones. Twitter is a closed system. ActivityPub, whatever its defects, is an open protocol. Mastodon is one of many implementations of that protocol, and it's not a particularly good one, it's just one that got a bunch of Euros thrown behind it early on.

My hope is that enough people will try to implement ActivityPub that they'll realize how broken it is, and will put in the work necessary to make it useable. In the process, Mastodon per se will become an historical footnote.

My fervent but utterly unrealistic hope is that _next_ time people will put the work into building good new tools on top of good already-debugged open protocols, rather than building crappy new tools and deciding that whatever they did along the way constitutes an open protocol.

Ray Kelm Apr 29, 2023

@woody @Are0h What if the problem isn’t the tools, but just human nature? When we get enough people together in one place, and allow indivduals to express their views (a good thing) with a large enough sample of people, then we’re going to have some people who express hateful views (a bad thing). And those people might have an influence that is larger than would otherwise have been possible, since we’re building these systems with global reach. We might be able to limit the impact of those people using tools, but the fact that they exist is unlikely to change in the short term.

I don’t think segregation is the answer here either. It might provide some “safety in numbers”, but it also paints a big target for those who want to express their hate.

I suspect that this is really a problem that can only be truly “fixed’ through long term societal change. Technical solutions might provide a short-term band-aid, but still leave the underlying cause untouched.

Bill Woodcock Apr 29, 2023

@rayk @Are0h

¿Por qué no las dos?

People being mean to each other is definitely a problem. Walled gardens are definitely a problem. I don't suggest that fixing one fixes the other. The walled gardens problem I know what to do about. People being mean to each other, not so much.

Tyler Vu Apr 30, 2023

@rayk @woody @Are0h

“The tech is the easy part.”

Bill Woodcock Apr 30, 2023

@tylervu @rayk @Are0h

Yep, and even that's apparently very easy to get wrong, if deregulation and social expectations are allowed to erode.

Ro Apr 30, 2023

@rayk @[email protected] Harassment, bigotry, and hate are not human nature. They are choices.

Comparing the setting of boundaries regarding safety to segregation is absurd.

And it's always funny to me how the least targeted people on the web, white men, run out of ideas to improve the quality of communication for everyone that isn't them.

It's always all this whataboutism without actually trying *anything.*

This post exemplifies how there is no real will to do anything other than hand wring and feign hopelessness.

Bill Woodcock Apr 30, 2023

@Are0h

I dunno. I'm a white guy who's put most of his life into trying to make the Internet work better and be more available for as many people as possible, most of them not "white," by dint of demographics. But things have gotten a lot worse than I hoped or expected over the last twenty years, and I really honestly am at a loss as to how to effect improvement. I know what needs to happen, but I don't seem to have enough traction or leverage or whatever to get regulators and prosecutors and tax collectors to do their jobs, or regular folks to discriminate between free-as-in-open and free-as-in-you're-the-product. I keep trying things, but I get more pessimistic with each passing year. Too many people too quick to sell out, too many others complacently enabling them.