Veronica ExplainsI'm going to talk about sexual harassment online for just a little bit here.
Bear with me.
Like many women online, I get sexual harassment in waves here on the good ol' fediverse.
Today was a rough day, other days are less rough, all of it is unwelcome, and that's a bigger problem than one online community. I don't expect Mastodon (or any other ActivityPub thing) to solve that problem 100%.
When I see it, I block it. Often enough it's a bad server, and I defederate.
This impacts the visibility of the comment.
So here's what happens practically:
First, I get a disgusting remark (or several) and block/defederate/whatever.
This remark does not pass through to other servers, who often enough *also* are blocking/defederating/whatever.
That means you, dear end-user, don't know that any of this happened.
So when I say something like "harassment is rough today", you're not seeing what I saw.
I personally feel like that's a problem. It gets in the way of understanding the scope of the issue.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want to host harassment and share it around. I get vile nightmare fuel you don't want to see.
Defederating is a good solution. But I feel strongly that Mastodon (as the putative leader pushing the protocol) could do two things.
One would be to make it easier to share naughty-lists full of bad actors in real time. This would help stop issues before they start.
The other is blocking replies.
I know, I know. "Blocking replies is impossible". "You can't stop people from disagreeing with you on the internet".
I've heard it all, and don't really care.
Here's my proposal: much like how I can set the post visibility here, I should be able to tell my server to drop any replies to that post.
Not "don't send notifications about replies". Drop them. Don't host them.
And compliant servers would honor that request in the UI.
I'm not asking to regulate your speech, dudes.
I'm saying I don't want to host it in certain contexts. And I think it'd be nice if the popular server software enabled that.
This would make the choice of "post or stay quiet" a lot easier here. This might encourage more folks from marginalized communities to come here instead of Bluesky or other platforms.
It might help *grow* this space. And I care about that.
"But how does blocking replies promote speech?"
Good question. Let's imagine selfies.
I don't share a ton of selfies because I get creepy comments.
I would almost certainly post more photos if I could tell my server "drop all replies that aren't from people I follow".
The lack of reply limiting is causing me to self-censor.
"But Veronica, you can mute posts containing certain words!"
True. And I do. But that stops *me* from seeing it. My server still hosts the harassment in that case. It's sending it to other servers.
I don't like that. Ethically that feels very bad. And potentially dangerous.
I want more control over what my server hosts. And the fact that I don't have that control? That's a choice from the folks pushing the protocol.
Fin
Papaexmatrikulatus@vkc Thanks for this explanation! I was wondering, where all of those bad comments where, when scrolling through the comment-section. This really helped me to understand the problem you are facing.
I'm hoping for a good solution to be found. You should not have to deal with harassment.
I'm hoping for a good solution to be found. You should not have to deal with harassment.
hamkaas@hamkaas I don't see value in private accounts, personally.
If I want to share with friends I have group chats. The entire reason I post on social media is to be social with a broader community.
Radgryd
Falling forward 🌵@Radgryd @vkc @hamkaas
This is what I was going to ask.
I see a post to followers only selection, which I've never tried.
So maybe making a distinction between selfies, and outreach posts?
(I don't use real name accounts, and cringe when I see selfie posts. But I understand I'm in the minority on those.)
How about post to followers for selfies, and post to the world for reach out posts?
I understand the thread is about suggesting new solutions to the problem.
zbrown
nLupo 
@vkc I have both, a server block list with subscriptions and a possibility to say who can answer my posts (it still can be improved, but most of the stuff is there), by using #Gotosocial. The main issue is, that I consider it beta version.
And yes, you should have the power to say what can be hosted on your instance. There is nothing wrong to ask for tools against harassment.
And yes, you should have the power to say what can be hosted on your instance. There is nothing wrong to ask for tools against harassment.
Prince Lucija@nlupo @vkc the tools against harrasment were actually what trans and queer folks asked from gargamel for masto in the early days. it's absolutely crucuial that this federated social software allows (gives power to users/communities) for a safer being online. i think gotosocial is now leading the way for much better moderation toolset.
Tomáš Beneš@vkc i wonder... does Mastodon even enable to share blacklist of blocked users? It might be a feature I'd use nearly as often as "follow". Like "hey, i trust this user so i want to ban the same nasty morons as they do". Because.. it's an effort to block someone!
On the Mastodon i did it only once. But on boardgamearena... boah, hundreds of bad players (incl. their behavior).
On the Mastodon i did it only once. But on boardgamearena... boah, hundreds of bad players (incl. their behavior).
Backyard Birder Opps@vkc I'm not a techie but I get the gist of what you are lifting up here... 😞
Diogo Constantino@vkc I agree with you, I would like to have both those features.
Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸@vkc great thread and I fully support what you’re advocating!
July! Our Sex Is On Fire! 🔥☀️🧨
Adhémara
yessikg@vkc Have you heard of GoToSocial? It allows you to control who can reply to your posts: https://codeberg.org/superseriousbusiness/gotosocial#features
@vkc ok, this is the first time i see a proposal about blocking replies on activitypub that actually goes into the nitty gritty detail about how to do it and is based on some understanding. all previous similar suggestions i saw were just screeming into the void that lacked any detail or were plain impossible to implement and that led me to believe it is actually not possible. what you propose makes perfect sense and changed my opinion on that topic.
Johns@vkc I wish I could just thanos-snap those people out of existence.
Yes. I'm saying harassers don't deserve to exist, if it offends you, fuck you.
Li ~ Crystal System@Johns_priv @vkc people have a right to exist, human rights are universal for everyone; not 'some humans rights'; this is not up for debate,
stop trying to make everyones rights conditonal; stop trying to make it something that can be be tossed out whenever someone fucking feels like it; if "people have a fundamental right to exist" offends you; and is a 'problem' to you, then you are part of the problem; fuck you,
@Li @vkc I'm not really sorry but I disagree wholeheartedly.
If you CHOOSE to be a nazi, homophobe, harrasser, then you are renouncing your humanity and thus the world would be better without you.
I know I am a monster for some for thinking like this, in my utopia I don't fit either, and that's ok to me.
Extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary measures.
Edited to add that you should check the paradox of tolerance.
@Johns_priv @vkc "then you are renoucing your humanity", no they arent, your just dehumanizing them;
"extraordinary measures require.." no they dont there is litterally no situation where murdering people is " required " at all esp in this way, you just want to hurt people;
and "the paradox of tolerance" does not fucking apply to fucking human rights, its about not needing to platform every bigot you come accross,
but if you wanna do that bs then we should actually thanos snap everyone like you out until "people have a fundamental, universal; right to exist" isnt a fucking controversial take anymore,
"extraordinary circumstances mean its okay!!" nevermind i can easily just not, please ignore that!
the world would be better off with actual human rights after all you CHOOSE that peoples right to exist is conditional as fuck you CHOOSE that it can be disregarded and you CHOOSE to do horrible tbings to others and excuse it, you CHOOSE to do dehumanization and and normalization of that; so its your fault
@Johns_priv @vkc btw homophobes, includes people i have a complex relationships with; (complications include them being homophobic btw, look up what that means) such as family/parents/etc, and also me ~8 years ago and was only like that due to their influence,
harassers probably includes me given ive made a bunch of accounts to block evade in the past too, even though i dont do that now, you'd deny me my right to exist anyway; so id never get to that point;
so in your effort to "stop homophobes" you killed a gay/trans person and their entire family, and in effort to "stop harassers" you killed 2 harassment victims
also speaking of nazis "soceity should be able to decide certain people shouldnt be able to exist" is a nazi take;
also this isnt a fucking opinion its peoples rights, stop framing it as an opinion, its not one, that implies its a legitimate point of discussion- its not, youve wholeheardedly admitted you want to cause immense harm to people and disregard human rights; and im calling it out.
fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻I don't have a computer science degree but I don't think people cease to exist if someone blocks them from replying to their post.
@fromjason @Johns_priv @vkc its directed to johns_priv who outright said certain people shouldnt be able to exist and said to fuck off if that "offends me"; may have been banned as i dont see in the thread itself, it was really bad, thats what its directed at, this feature proposal is fine;
Interestingly this broken reply, likely due to a moderation decision, illustrates a problem with federation and loss of context due to moderation factors. A "drop replies" feature would potentially be useful to avoid context errors like this (on compliant servers at least).
@Li @fromjason @vkc Chill, you're going to have a heart attack or something.
I already said that in my perfect world I wouldn't exist, I'm not a hypocrite.
You being queer doesn't make you a good person, is just one of your traits. I've met queer racists,they can burn in whatever hell they believe in for all I care.
YBe religious or vegan or believe in the spaghetti monster, as soon as you consider better than others and behave in such way, I don't care about your life. Yes, I'm a monster and?
@Johns_priv @fromjason @vkc i cant "chill" you want people to not be able to exist and systemically denied the most fundamental of rights?! and your utopia is a place where people dont have a right to exist so its not a utopia, you beleive yourself betger than others, you should infact do better, fuck you and cut it the fuck out, dont tell me to chill out when YOU said and advocated for something horrible, its you who needs to do that its you who needs to do better, "being queer doesnt make you a good person" my dear im talking about myself in the past im not like that anymore, thats the point; also "good people" and "bad people" dont exist just people who do bad things and people who do good things, ffs
"yes im a monster and?" and stop it? fucking treat people properly, respect peoples rights, thanks,
like ffs you know what your saying and calling for is absolutely not okay and are doing it anyway, fucking hell; stop it.
your the one who wants people to be fucking killed, so how about you chill?
@Li @fromjason @vkc Nah, as I wrote I will treat people the same way they treat others.
I am not interested in half measures, the world is getting fucked and unlivable because of the kumbaya treatment.
Yes we ARE in a climate emergency because people, and I mean almost every fucking one, don't think twice.
You buy something in Amazon? I hate you.
You use AI? I despise you.
You travel in plane cause you want to see the world? Fuck you.
The human race could be amazing, but it takes an effort
@Johns_priv@mastodon.social @fromjason @vkc lets have a look at "how you treat others" oh look its is absolutely horribly since you disrespect basic human rights, and want people to be killed,
> I will treat people the same way they treat others.
no you treat them worse than they treat others, you want to murder people while how they treat others is merely harassment or being homophobic, which is significantly worse, again -- you just want to hurt people
that is a 'half measure' its not even a fucking measure at all.
'it could be amazing' yes it could, but that starts with respecting peoples basic rights. stop with the idea that its "okay" to do horrible things to people 'sometimes', that is infact the major fucking reason why it 'sucks'
Catnip@Johns_priv @Li @fromjason @vkc As far as I know, the most effective way to get people to do what you want is to progressively bring them to your viewpoint.
You might hate someone for what they are doing, but antagonizing them is counterproductive. People just stop listening if you insult them, or threaten them. The faster way of convincing them is to understand where they are coming from, and find how to make them think like you.
This is slow, it's frustrating, it's a lot of effort, but it's how you make people improve.
Say someone is using a power hungry generative AI. Why are they using it? If they don't have a big reason, telling them gently about the energy and water cost might be enough, but if they have a reason, you need to find a replacement. You might hate the reason, find it unjustified, but telling them "just stop" isn't effective. Try finding art that matches what they want, teach them how to search, find an artist or ten to recommend they commission.
Changing the world is hard, saying "just kill the bad people" is lazy.
(also, killing bad btw, just saying)
You might hate someone for what they are doing, but antagonizing them is counterproductive. People just stop listening if you insult them, or threaten them. The faster way of convincing them is to understand where they are coming from, and find how to make them think like you.
This is slow, it's frustrating, it's a lot of effort, but it's how you make people improve.
Say someone is using a power hungry generative AI. Why are they using it? If they don't have a big reason, telling them gently about the energy and water cost might be enough, but if they have a reason, you need to find a replacement. You might hate the reason, find it unjustified, but telling them "just stop" isn't effective. Try finding art that matches what they want, teach them how to search, find an artist or ten to recommend they commission.
Changing the world is hard, saying "just kill the bad people" is lazy.
(also, killing bad btw, just saying)
@Catnip @Li @fromjason @vkc I've spent most of my life trying to do it the nice way.
COVID showed me is useless, as the IT crowd put it "people, what a bunch of bastards"
So yeah, that was my breaking point, seeing people fighting you cause they didn't want to wear a mask and protect themselves and others.
People thinking that is over. "Some will die, but the alternative is my being a bit inconvenienced"
I will ridicule and shame them, they will remember what I say
@Catnip @Li @fromjason @vkc We cannot convince people to wear a mask to protect themselves and their loved ones, you expect to convince them to make an effort with anything else?
I don't think is possible, COVID broke my faith in humanity.
Some people are still amazing and proof that the human race could be incredibly awesome, but the majority sucks big time, they are the lazy ones.
It takes an effort to love our world and everyone in it, I'm just not wasting time
@Johns_priv @Li @fromjason @vkc does that actually work? There's a big difference between remembering and them changing anything.
Also, I know from experience that a lot of unrelated people will hear you and have a terrible inwards reaction from it.
Insult one and the others hate you too. Complain about them being lazy and the ones with an actual "can't wear mask" issue will self loathe harder.
Being compassionate is how you teach others to be. If you're being mean to them while asking them to improve they'll just think it's ok to not care for others.
Also, I know from experience that a lot of unrelated people will hear you and have a terrible inwards reaction from it.
Insult one and the others hate you too. Complain about them being lazy and the ones with an actual "can't wear mask" issue will self loathe harder.
Being compassionate is how you teach others to be. If you're being mean to them while asking them to improve they'll just think it's ok to not care for others.
@Catnip @Li @fromjason @vkc I have stopped caring if it works to be honest. I have colleagues at work (women!) saying that things were better with Franco.
After COVID I realised that most of the people will not change, whatever I try to do.
So I'm just tired of having the moral high ground or attempting to convince them.
I'll just remind them that they're part of the problem, in case they lie to themselves.
@Catnip @Li @fromjason @vkc Also, when I mentioned racism I'm not referring to people of colour, that's a relatively new problem.
Look about how Spaniards treat gypsy people (gitanos), is fucking embarrassing.
My best friend as a kid was a gypsy, and I was told to stop playing with him. I didn't so I got punished for it.
@Li @fromjason @vkc Because, it all comes down to this.
I was taught that you can tell how people are by how they treat those in 'lower positions ' (cleaning people, waiters, barkeeps, etc)
I've added 'how they treat the world '
Never in the history of mankind we've had all the information available to us, but people don't care, is easier to go about their lives
"Oh the news have said" which ones? How many sources have you checked?
So many examples of people failing to do the minimum, fuck'em
@Johns_priv@mastodon.social @fromjason @vkc
you are treating people in 'lower positions' pretty fucking horribly right now actually, (being in a position to be able to systemically murder people is implicitly being 'lower than them' actually)
how about when your 'taught' that its okay to do something absolutely horrendus and horrible you recognize whoever the fuck told you that is the problem and tell them to fuck off instead of reiterating it?
> So many examples of people failing to do the minimum, fuck'em
like you? like denying them their fundamental right to exist? because that IS the fucking bare minimum
you are treating the world horribly you are treating other people horribly shouldnt that say alot about you and per your 'teaching' that you should improve? seriously what the fuck
日本語まあまあ@Li @fromjason @Johns_priv @vkc The way I read this thread, I thought that Johns was talking more about something like the Rapture that a lot of US Christians believe in. Is it OK when God does it?
@nihongomaamaa @Li @fromjason @vkc I said ithat I wished I could thanos-snap some people out of existence. Is it that bad? I mean, going to extremes, Putin, Netanyahu, and others like them, is it so bad to wish they wouldn't exist?
I believe the human race has an incredible potential for good. 'Luminous beings are we' but we're collectively being fucked sideways by greedy inhumane beings (see also the Shackler family)
Others believe all live is sacred and we should give them a chance, hard pass
SchmakerI would almost certainly post more photos if I could tell my server "drop all replies that aren't from people I follow".
This makes sense. Your server, you approve who can comment your stuff.
Posting stuff in "restricted" mode would work that way, but audience would be limited only to these followers.
I like that idea and would seriously love this feature as well...
Invisible Marcel 🌀@vkc I think those are brilliant ideas. I hope the mastodon people pick up this idea. It would make life in the fediverse a lot better for marginalised groups.
Raphael@vkc I struggle to imagine how that would work. If I block/drop some answers on my app/server, my _followers_ still see those answers, and if they reply I see _those_ posts (?) and they won't make sense at all.
Not to mention that I couldn't "moderate" the reply stream, not that that's necessarily my responsibility or a good hobby.
🤔
Domenico
Logan Land@vkc Thank you for explaining this problem. I hope Mastodon gets their shit together and merges that pull request.
Michael Free@vkc sorry you have to deal with this stuff. I always struggle to understand why people do shitty things, when its so much easier not to do shitty things to begin with?
Anger and hate takes so much energy and effort.
Thanks for being public about this stuff.
Chris Silverman 🌻@vkc 💯. I don't get 1% of the trash you do, and managing who shows up in my posts is something I've wanted for years. I'd say that's the number-one feature request I see discussed on here, honestly.
Vicious abuse is a serious problem, to be sure, and a lot of us are deeply, bone-level tired of other forms of obnoxiousness as well: drive-by snark, tone cops, debate trolls, and other pests.
I can't count how many times I didn't share something bc of what I imagined the replies would sound like.
@csilverman I would *love* to be able to tell my server "drop and do not share any replies containing the words 'women' and 'kitchen'". It's not just that *I* don't want to see it, it's that I don't want to play a part in other people seeing it.
@vkc Christ. Yeah, exactly—that's the core counterpoint to the "just mute/block" argument. I don't want some troublemaker's nonsense defacing my work. It isn't just offensive to me, it also drives away other people who I do want to interact with.
I've participated in over two decades' worth of online communities at this point, and the "speech at all costs" principle that seems to define the thinking around these things has *never* resulted in better, more fulfilling interactions. Not even once.
Dec (slowed + reverb)@csilverman @vkc
I have sometimes seen a decent post (that I wanted to boost), then after I read the replies I decided that I didn't want to inflict the reply thread on my followers.
Most of the time when I report an abusive reply, the reporting process shows that the same account has been going after multiple people. It's rare that they do it just once.
Daniel Barber@csilverman @vkc It seems to me that many people misunderstand free speech. Somebody can say whatever they like, but I'm not obliged to host it for them.
fraggLe!@vkc I'm not marginalized in any way that really matters, and it'd even help *me*. I'm forever self-censoring - I'll type out a reply, then think "ahh, this conversation doesn't really need my input" and delete it.
There's really two features that should be part of fedi (think you've asked for both before?): ability to limit replies (signal when a post is not starting a public conversation), and ability to disown replies as canonical.
Let others say what they want instead of trying to guess!
@fwaggle yes! This makes sense to me, and feels like it'd *foster* conversation instead of blocking it.
If folks ask me questions here and I reply, often my reply (with a large following) triggers a lot of unwelcome replies for the OP.
I can limit visibility, of course, but then multiple people ask the same question instead of learning from each other.
Being able to tell my server "drop replies that aren't from the OP" would be amazing for encouraging conversation.
@vkc I haven't really been paying attention to GoToSocial lately (because I start to think about the colossal task of figuring out how to migrate my domain from one fedi software to another, I keep hoping someone else will do it first and I can copy their homework) but I think they're working on the former at least.
But without support in the wider software it'll just be confusing also.
But even things like we have to tell people "boosts welcome" - why do we live like this? It could be better!
Ember 
@fwaggle @vkc it's currently in a usable state on snapshot releases
the best option to migrating to GTS is probably https://github.com/VyrCossont/slurp/ still not full instance migration tho
@Ember Unless they added a new feature, slurp doesn't do what I care about, which is migrating the keys across so I can keep the same domain (who cares about my posts, anytime important I posted I reposted on my site, which is to say not much). It seems more of a user level tool?
In theory importing the HTTP keys should be fairly trivial - I just don't want to risk breaking it, and haven't had the energy to look into it. I may wind up just using my other domain permanently instead.
little tricks@vkc strong agree, and really appreciate your perspective.