Just to state the obvious:
Any moderation system like Mastodon’s that regularly lets through the kind of sewage that @KimCrayton1 has been highlighting is a moderation system that is failing.
Failing.
Full stop. https://dair-community.social/@KimCrayton1/112872020308883967
Attached: 1 image And right on cue, the roaches come out Gotta love the originality of the “go back to Africa” comments Just mediocre and unremarkable 🤣😂🤣
Spare me the lectures about moving instances, the philosophical underpinnings of federation, “just ignore it,” “I don’t see it,” or whatever excuse you’re halfway through typing.
There’s an old engineering saying: all it’s gotta do is work.
It doesn’t work.
The account in that screenshot appears to be on a self-hosted instance. That is one of the recurring sources of moderation troubles: some new actor can create a pop-up harassment node. Since there’s no instance-level moderation, every •other• instance has to block the account •individually•, which takes time.
(Of course, self-hosted instances are also more vulnerable to attacks of various kinds, and are paying for traffic out of pocket if there’s a DDoS, so…real tradeoff for the trolls there.)
Several replies either asking what the solution is, or proposing one.
Some important context for the posts upthread: We are still at the point where many people are denying that there even •is• a problem with moderation on Mastodon.
The immediate next step here is simply to say, loud and clear, “This is unacceptable.” Let’s not skip that step. It matters.
Beyond that…
…to those proposing solutions: Thanks, keep brainstorming, seek the thoughts of others. There are people who’ve already been thinking about this for a while.
…to those replying in a “How do I help?” spirit: Awesome, please mind the previous post upthread.
…to those inching toward “Don’t complain if you don’t have a solution:” The first step of finding solutions is identifying problems. Denying problems is a way of preventing solutions. Piss off and thx for coming to my TED talk.
My own quick brainstorm for faster, better moderation:
- Reply controls already, like yesterday
- Default to allowlisting for new/unknown instances instead of denylisting
- Federated moderation: option to publish & subscribe to moderation decisions of other trusted instances. Instance owner could (1) fully subscribe to one (e.g. “mirror all of hachyderm’s moderation”) or (2) automatically apply decisions to own instance that multiple other instances made, past some consensus threshold
Paul Cantrell
Jupiter Rowland