Dave Alvarado5d ago

How (racist/sexist/whatever) harassment on Mastodon works:

1. Harasser replies to their target's post, with the reply set to "followers only", saying the most vile stuff you can imagine.

2. All the harasser's followers join in on the harassment, posting more vile stuff.

3. Nobody but the target and the harassment crew can see the vile stuff that was said.

4. Target is traumatized. Nobody else can see why.

5. Everybody says "I don't see it so it's not happening."

https://community.hachyderm.io/blog/2024/08/12/hachyderms-introduction-to-mastodon-moderation-part-1/

Hachyderm's Introduction to Mastodon Moderation: Part 1

The first post in a series about Mastodon moderation tooling. This post focuses on context for the upcoming posts.

Hachyderm Community
Show threadmyrmepropagandist4d ago

@dave

I really wish there was a more sophisticated way to share moderation examples. Eg. individuals and servers could "trust" each other and then automatically share lists of reported domains and users *including* the offending posts and comments about context.

Right now the software offers to let your report a user to their home server and this is almost always a terrible idea since their whole server is probably terrible and it just makes more slur filled posts show up.

Show threadmyrmepropagandist4d ago

@dave

I have experienced a moderate amount of this nonsense, I don't think the fedi is worse than other online spaces but... shouldn't we strive to be better? Not just "good enough?"

Show threadmyrmepropagandist4d ago

@dave

I don't want to report a user to their home server. I want to report them to a list of 100 servers that I trust who would also quickly and quietly block them limiting their reach.

And I want to be able to decide who I trust with that information. The needlessly controversial #fediblock tag was created because we don't have a tool like this.

Using public hastags to do this is obviously inferior. But users adapt to system that can't be bother to adapt to their needs.

Show threadFurbland's Very Cool Mastodon™4d ago
@futurebird @dave IIRC @gabboman is working on developing a protocol like what you're talking about
Show threadgabboman the wafrn dev4d ago

Mastodon team has a “we should do something” about this, and they have started thinking about it long ago. Before wafrn even existed!

There are some important steps that need to be taken first and yatayatayata, but yes, this is one of the moderation failures of fedi

Show threadFurbland's Very Cool Mastodon™4d ago
@gabboman @futurebird @dave yeah, i can see how it would be super hard to put together something like this. i think mastodon should get it out sooner rather than later, but at the same time i absolutely do not fault them for taking as much time as they need to ensure this is implemented well and justifiably
Show threadgabboman the wafrn dev

I also have the reply control thing (GTS spec + one expansion for “ask op of thread not me) but until everyone uses it its just a glorified mute


#And-i-still-need-to-do-some-extra-parts
Mar 21 at 9:30amWeb