So. Three folks I follow are echoing pretty much the same sentiment I've been trying to express and are spending less time here.

I'll preface with a reminder that you may very well feel my opinions are bunk. I am a successful YouTuber, after all, with all the privileges that entails.

But here's the brass tacks: it's harder for me to be here comfortably than it was on the birdsite. And to be honest, I think Mastodon's always gonna be this way.

Whenever I encounter problems, I am inevitably told I should try different instance. Whenever anybody has problems, people say "maybe you should move instances"

I do not know why so many people fail to grasp this, but we are experiencing mastodon between instances far more than we are on our own. I hardly ever look at the home tab for mas.to, I look at who I'm following on the Home feed.

That in-betweeny space is apparently impossible to moderate.

If a post of mine gets a boosted to a broader audience, I am subject to harassment. I'm not going to sugarcoat that, it's harassment.

Sure, of the various kinds of harassment I have not been subject to anything serious. But it is exhausting and personally insulting, with one person telling me in no uncertain terms that they don't believe my job should be a job.

This. Fucking. Sucks.

And who's accountable for taming that? Nobody! Because it's between instances.

@TechConnectify I’m curious — are there other platforms that handle this kind of harassment better?

@michaelgemar Twitter, for one! If for no other reason that it could automatically detect most harassment and make it hard to find or shadow ban it completely.

But that would be introducing an algorithm to the things you see, which people don't want

@TechConnectify Huh — my priors would have been that Twitter was bad at that sort of thing.

It’s really unfortunate there are no good current solutions on Mastodon. Its nature does allow for lots of experimentation, including by…instances…, but the fix clearly doesn’t exist yet.

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

@[email protected] From the lived experience of many Black Twitter users: There are *more* overt nazis on the Fediverse than on Twitter. There is *more* anti-Blackness on the Fediverse than on Twitter. Eg, The nonsense that happened to Ro last week, would not stand on Twitter. The *checks notes* close to 40 million Black Twitter users, including almost *checks notes* half a million Black trans users, would put a stop to that. Quickly. Mastodon is not necessarily less of a nazi bar for Black folk.

Hachyderm.io
@jdp23 @michaelgemar @mekkaokereke @TechConnectify The linked post misses the point - there may be *somewhere* lots of Nazis on Mastodon, and there may be even more on the other side of the world, can't do much against them either. The difference to Twitter is that I've never seen them in my timeline or interactions, while on Twitter their postings get shoved into my face immediately.

@Hurgotron @jdp23 @michaelgemar @TechConnectify

The linked post doesn't miss any point.

The post is written from the perspective of a Black person. In particular, me. 🙋🏿‍♂️

I don't care that you've never seen n*zis on your timeline. I've seen them on mine.

You're really replying that it misses the point, because it doesn't center your perspective and experience, and instead centers the perspective and experience of the person that wrote it?

Please tell me I'm misunderstanding your point here.

@mekkaokereke @jdp23 @michaelgemar @TechConnectify I don't know what you are doing to see Nazis in your timeline, but I'm only seeing stuff I follow, or others on my instance post and follow, and that happens to be not Nazis. Maybe I am wrong, but therefore it appears to be possible not to be exposed to Nazis on Mastodon. While on Twitter it seems to be impossible - I tried, with two very different accounts, and anonymously. If I missed how to do it, I'd really like to know.
@Hurgotron @mekkaokereke @jdp23 @[email protected] @TechConnectify Yes, it's possible to not be exposed to nazis on the fediverse if you're white and otherwise not on their radar. If you're not 'seeing' nazis on fedi it's because they're not targeting you. Be thankful and acknowledge that you're privileged enough to not be a target for nazis, and appreciate that other people very much ARE and deal with that every day.
@welshpixie @jdp23 @TechConnectify I got that, and thanks for pointing that out, indeed this is a matter of privilege. But I'd still like to understand the mechanisms which make that more likely on Mastodon than on Twitter. I have seen organized hate mobs on Twitter, with no meaningful amount of moderation, and wonder why it should be less of an issue with racism.
@Hurgotron three are organized hate mobs on the fedivrtse too - in fact the early-2016 wave had a lot of the same people who had been kicked off Twitter, and since then they’ve brought their friends. And most large Mastodon instances don’t have meaningful moderation (for that matter neither do many small Masto instances) so that’s most people’s experience. AND Mssto doesn’t have basic tools that Twitter does, like limiting replies or taking profiles private etc. @welshpixie