Dave Alvarado3d 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 threadDave Alvarado3d ago
If you're a white person on the Fediverse and you've never seen someone called a slur, or threats made against them--congratulations! You don't follow any dirtbags. But, it's happening every day and it's being hidden from you.
Show threadDave Alvarado3d ago

"But Dave, why don't they moderate?"

They do. The harassers spin up new instances to get around block lists.

"But Dave, why don't they show the receipts (screenshots to prove it's happening)?"

The brave ones do, when they have the energy. It invites a huge amount more harassment, so showing receipts *always* causes psychological damage.

Some folks are willing to tank that damage to get the word out. Most people understandably just want it to stop.

Show threadDave Alvarado3d ago

Addendum to this (thanks @flippac !): the receipts a victim of harassment could show won't help stop anything, it's all sock puppet accounts. The most information they can share is "see look, this *happens*. It happened to *me*."

Which, let's be honest, isn't that useful in the white supremacist patriarchal world we live in. A few new people will learn to believe the victims of harassment. That's not much return on investment when the cost is needing more therapy.

gnaddrig22h ago
Show threadDave Alvarado

Last post I'm going to make in this thread. If you want more visibility into this underside of the Fediverse, follow the #fediblock hashtag (and send some mental thanks and good vibes to MarciaX while you're at it, you're benefiting from the work of a Black woman).

If you want to do something about this, I know of two things anyone can do:

1. Share this info. Steal my posts in good health, or write this issue up in your own words.

2. Open or comment on issues at https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues

mastodon/mastodon

Your self-hosted, globally interconnected microblogging community - mastodon/mastodon

GitHub
Mar 20 at 3:09pmWeb
Show threadDaniel Appelquist2d ago
@dave Thank you for sharing this. There are a lot of open issues marked with the "moderation" https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20state%3Aopen%20label%3Amoderation (many of them also marked as "suggestion"). Do you have any suggestions of which of these proposals (if any) would help to mitigate the issues you're describing? Is there anything that should be done at the ActivityPub level? https://github.com/w3c/activitypub/issues
Show threadElischeva2d ago

@dave

The harrassers didn't know, that I have a loose block-Finger. I blocked already some of them.

And des, I already know the Hashtags #fediblock for getting Info on Accounts to block. Also my admins are eager to block any of such bullshit for the whole instance.