@[email protected] I'm the administrator of four Italian instances based on four different systems, and I don't see racism and mansplaining as urgent matters: the reports I received about racist posts came from junk instances I hadn't yet included in my block list, or from newly created users created for the purpose of trolling or harassing. I quickly banned the unmoderated instances or the harassing users, and the attacks on those victims have stopped.

Regarding mansplaining, I've never received any reports, although I've had to intervene on some sexist posts (and in those cases, I didn't even need to use the moderation tools; simply explaining that certain messages were offensive was enough to get the author to edit or delete them).

In short, do you really think we need more than just moderation to solve this problem, considering that in cases of targeted and repeated harassment, it's always possible to use the feature that allows you to make your posts visible only to your followers?

Finally, I find the possibility of allowing replies only to certain users:

• unbearable, because it would distort Mastodon's core feature, the idea of ​​"interaction by default."
• it would stimulate those toxic profiles who want to post without cross-examination, a phenomenon that on X/Twitter has reached unbearable heights of arrogance on the part of certain second-tier tweetstars.
• it would be harmful, because it is not an Activitypub standard and would further confuse the situation (exactly as happened with Mastodon's absurd way of handling quotes).
• furthermore, since it is not an Activitypub standard, it would be supported by none of the other social software in the Fediverse, from Friendica to Misskey, from Pleroma to Pixelfed: these software would continue to publish replies to victims of harassment, who would continue to find a wall of harassment written under their posts, visible from all other platforms and without even the possibility of reporting them (exactly as is happening in the case of post with quote)

@informapirata Yes, of course, any reply control system would have to work across all fediverse platforms, hence this being a challenging feature to implement.

But yes, I do think people should have more control over their experience online. I think the trade-offs are worth it. Accounts that abuse this feature can be reported and suspended, I don't think that should be a problem.

If I was getting harassed on here regularly with few tools to protect myself, beyond reporting a post and waiting for someone to come to my rescue, I'd likely also leave for a platform where I will feel safer and more empowered.

@informapirata "and I don't see racism and mansplaining as urgent matters"

Well, it's easy to miss this if you and your communities are not directly affected. One particularly insidious attack vector has been making a followers-only post and tagging your victim. This way nobody else would see the abuse outside of the attackers and the victim. The post visibility, from what I understand, also makes it harder to report such attacks.

And there is quite a bit more, I highly recommend reading this:

https://privacy.thenexus.today/start-making-the-fediverse-less-toxic/