The #Bluesky community is on strike, in protest of “free speech” moderation policies and refusal to prevent or remove #racism.
The inciting incident this time: users signing up with the n-word in their usernames. Using the word “cracker”, however, was a bannable offense.
Bluesky has not responded for over 36 hours as of writing. Devs are blocking protestors. Timelines are filled with variations of:
“No more normal posting until my Black friends and family are safe.”
It is beautiful to watch folks organize spontaneously around this. There are some really novel techniques being used that I have not seen before.
Shitposters and sex workers blurring their posts and withholding lewds, if only there was a safe platform to post them. Quote chains of people asking the devs to block them too in solidarity. Users building custom, public mute lists to block out fascists and protect marginalized communities.
The devs are liking nazi callout posts & posting on Twitter
But I would also like to take a second, before you enjoy too much schadenfreude, to point out that by and large PoC communities also are not safe on Mastodon.
A huge amount of the feedback being levied on Bluesky’s lasseiz faire moderation policies also apply to us here.
I have very little faith Bluesky will improve, but we still could.
@liztai I’m really sorry to hear that (but also completely unsurprised). You shouldn’t have to deal with it.
I don’t run any communities or have much influence, but if there’s anything I can ever do to help toss a fascist directly into the sun and make the mastodon more safe and pleasant for you and your network, let me know.
EVHaste
Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾