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."
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.
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?"
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.
@futurebird this is such a good idea! It would be incredible to have reports dealt with so sensibly. Coupled with blocklist subscriptions… frickin game-changer. @andypiper have you seen this?
Dave Alvarado
myrmepropagandist
Meljoann