Mastodawn

Anti-Blackness – beliefs, attitudes, actions, practices, and behaviors of individuals, institutions, software, and systems that devalue, minimize, and marginalize the full participation of Black people across the world – is a long-term problem in the fediverse. Dr. Johanthan Flowers The Whiteness of Mastodon and Twitter vs. Mastodon podcast, Ra’il I'Nasah Kiam and Marcia X's Blackness in the Fediverse, the links in Dogpiling, weaponized content warning discourse, and a fig leaf for mundane white supremacy, and the draft of the draft of Ah, Lemmy: Racism and Denial in the Threadiverse have some of the history].

Every time things flare up, along with the harassment and denial and victim blaming and hate, there's also lot of hand-wringing about how we should be better than this. And then things go back to how they always are. White people in the fediverse collectively should indeed be better than this ... but in practice, we are not.

Now's a good time to start changing that and start making the fediverse less toxic to Black people. (2/N)

The Whiteness of Mastodon

A conversation with Dr. Johnathan Flowers about Elon Musk's changes at Twitter and the dynamics on Mastodon, the decentralized alternative.

Tech Policy Press

Listen more to more Black people - and amplify their voices

Hashtags like #BlackMastodon and #BlackAugust, and groups like https://fedigroups.social/@blackfedi are good places to start if you're using Mastodon, GoToSocial, or other microblogging fediverse software. If you're on a platform like Lemmy which doesn't yet have similar hubs, it's more challenging.

One good option, no matter what platform you're on, is to follow independent news sites like The 19th News and Prism Reports. Other social networks, news aggregators, and search engines are also good sources for articles and videos by Black people. If you haven't seen anybody else has posted them to fediverse yet, share them yourself!

Keep in mind that Black communities aren't monolithic, so don't just listen to and amplify a few high-profile accounts. Instead, make sure you're getting a range of perspectives – including Black Women, trans, queer, and non-binary Black people, disabled Black people, Afro-Indigenous people, and Black anarchists. (3/N)

Black Fedizens (@[email protected])

319 Posts, 0 Following, 179 Followers · A Black-owned group for Black folks across the fediverse to connect. Follow me, and mention me to have your post boosted to all my followers.

FediGroups

Think before you post

As Ijeoma Oluo says in Welcome To The Anti-Racism Movement — Here’s What You’ve Missed:

"Every idea you have for how we can better fight racism has already been discussed.... Free, individualized education is not a thing we do anymore."

Even if you're asking questions because you sincerely want to know, or you're suggesting good ideas, it's very often not particularly helpful. In fact, since many Black people hear the same questions and suggestions again and again so often that it's very irritating. And let's face it, many times they're not actually particularly good questions or ideas – or people express them in an unfortunate way.

So if you're about to post about a topic related to anti-Blackness (or race in general), especially if it's a reply to a post or thread from a Black person, stop and ask yourself whether you're actually adding anything to the conversation.

Very often, after this initial reflection, you'll decide not to post. That's okay! If you do decide to post, take the time to phrase it well. Double-check your wording to see you're not inadvertently using problematic language.

Of course, the combination of deciding not to post in some circumstances, and taking more time to think and work on the wording of the posts you do make, means that you'll post less ... but that's not a bad thing.

EDIT, 8/19: I changed the headline on this to match a change in the underlying article, it previously started with "Post Less"
(4/N)

Welcome To The Anti-Racism Movement — Here’s What You’ve Missed

A handy list of things that you’re going to need to catch up on. Buck up, because it won’t be easy.

The Establishment

Call in, call out, and/or report anti-Blackness when you see it

Especially if it's the first time you've seen anti-Blackness from somebody and it seems like it was unintentional, very often a polite call in as a reply or direct message is a good option. Impact > intent, so a mistake can still cause harm even if it's not intentional, but it's more likely to be a good learning opportunity. Let them know they've said something unfortunate, explain why, and possibly follow up with them one-on-one or in a small group. For more on this tactic, see Harvard Diversity Inclusion and Belonging's Calling In and Calling Out Guide and Loretta Ross' Don't Call People Out, Call Them In video and book Calling In.

If it's egregious, or somebody doubles down instead of fixing it, or they have a pattern of unfortunate remarks, then report it to the moderators – and potentially call them out more loudly.

If you're a moderator, it's especially important to take action on anti-Blackness when somebody reports it – or when you notice it yourself. If the comment is particularly egregious, delete it and consider banning the user (or at least give them a formal warning). Otherwise, especially if it's somebody on your own instance, you may want to start by calling them in; if somebody doesn't want to learn, you'll need to take stronger action. (5/N)

Support Black people and Black-led instances and projects

Many Black people in the fediverse promote or sell art, music, books, crafts, and newsletters. Many have "looking for a job" posts, crowdfunding or donation links, or threads like Andrea's Juneteenth post collecting requests from others. If you see a post you like, or somebody who's been treated shabbily by others in the fediverse and you feel bad about it, check their profile and pinned and recent posts to see how you can help. If you're listening to Black people, you'll also see lots of other opportunities. Whether or not you have funds to spare, you can help by boosting and promoting people's work, fundraisers, job search requests, etc.

There are also a lot of other ways to support Black people on the fediverse. For example:

The #MutualAid hashtag is a good place to find people who need support.
Black-led instances like blackqueer.life, diaspora.im, and blacktwitter.io play an important role in the fediverse – and need support.
Black-led software projects like Awujo (proposed in Ro's A Case for Community) that "prioritize safety, accessibility, and ease of use, managed by a consensus of diverse voices" can play an important role in addressing the fediverse's lack of safety for everybody ... but the software won't write itself.

(6/N)

A Case for Community

Because it should be easy.

Approach it intersectionally

Anti-Blackness isn't the fediverse's only problem. Misogyny, transphobia and other forms of anti-LGBTQIA2S+ bigotry , anti-Indigeneity, ableism, Islamophobia, antisemitism ... the list goes on. As well as being problems in their own right, all of these other dimensions of oppression compound the fediverse's anti-Blackness. And people at the intersections experience unique forms of oppression.

Misogynoir – a term originally coined by Dr. Moya Bailey in 2008, describes the ways anti-Black and misogynistic representation shape broader ideas about Black women and gender-expansive people (especially in social media) – is one important example of intersectional oppression. Calling all non-Black people: Interrupting Misogynoir, by Dr. Heliana Ramirez and Jaya Mallik, is an excellent very recent resource; there's also a PDF version available here.

Similarly, transmisogynoir describes the intersection between transphobia, misogyny, and anti-Black racism specifically; Ashlee Maree Preston's The Anatomy of Transmisogynoir is a good introduction.

Of course, all of these dimensions of impressions are also complex issues, and the of how things manifest details can be very different, but the basic framework in #1-#4 of listening more, being more thoughtful about posting, intervening when you see something, and supporting people is quite general. For example, sections #2 and #3 point to how to make progress on Mastodon's notorious reputation for "reply-guy-ism" – which, while bad in general, is a lot worse for Black women and other women and femmes of color.

So please pay attention to these dynamics as well, and make sure you're listening to and supporting Black women, trans and queer Black people, and disabled Black people as well as Black guys and cis, straight, abled Black people.

(7/N)

Calling All Non-Black People Interrupting Misogynoir.pdf

Google Docs

And that's not all ...

Of course, these aren't the only things that need to happen to make the fediverse less toxic for Black people.

It's also vital to do the work to examine and make progress on your own biases, assumptions, habits, and other forms of anti-Blackness – which we all have. Ijeoma Oluo's "Welcome To The Anti-Racism Movement — Here’s What You’ve Missed" is a very good introduction. Her book "So You Want to Talk About Race" goes into more detail, as do her videos including this one with Dr. Cherisee Jones-Branch. I also found Dr. Crystal Fleming's "How to Be Less Stupid About Race" helpful, and she's got some excellent videos too, including this

(8/N)

"So You Want to Talk About Race" with Ijeoma Oluo and Dr. Cherisse Jones-Branch: Entire Conversation

YouTube

– Welcome To The Anti-Racism Movement — Here’s What You’ve Missed

"You will get better at this, but at first you will fuck up a lot, and you will always fuck up a little.... You are here because you are a decent human, and because you are a decent human you are going to feel pretty shitty when you fuck up.... You will need to get used to the pang of guilt from realizing you have fucked up and it has hurt people. Because it will hit you again and again."

Speaking of which, I'm sure I've made mistakes here – it's a very challenging subject to write about, and I too have spent my entire life in environments where anti-Blackness is normalized and (just like everybody else) am still not always aware of when I'm falling into it. Thanks to everybody who gave me helpful feedback on the draft, but I've almost certainly found new ways to screw up in this current version. So, my apologies in advance; please call me in or out, as you see fit!

(9/N)

Welcome To The Anti-Racism Movement — Here’s What You’ve Missed

A handy list of things that you’re going to need to catch up on. Buck up, because it won’t be easy.

The Establishment

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

The full post also has appendices with discussion of some common mistakes people make talking about anti-Blackness (and more generally race), and blockist resource for moderators.

And, if you're only seeing a snippet of this thread, here's the link to the top: https://infosec.exchange/@thenexusofprivacy/112956213079993182

(10/10 ... for now)

At no point along this have you described how Black people might educate White people to the struggle. Telling us to read a book isn't really an answer. Many of us have read the books.

MLK failed because he did not have a White counterpart. Gandhi failed because he did not have a Muslim counterpart.

But Mandela succeeded because he did have a White counterpart, F.W. de Klerk.

@tuban_muzuru I wasn't aiming this post at Black people -- they know more than me about how to interact with white people. Also I wouldn't say that MLK failed; he was remarkably successful, despite major opposition from white people, and would have been even moreso if he hadn't been killed by a white person.

Here's the rock bottom truth about American racism: its rules have been in place for three centuries now and it will take about that long to fill in the trenches of the Race Line.

As surely as White people need to come to terms with the Race Line, Black people have their part to play in that repair, too. My children are biracial - which race are they?

Why do supposedly enlightened people still play by the same old rules?

@tuban_muzuru There are plenty of good articles written by Black people with suggestions for how Black people should deal with anti-Blackness in America. Like I say, I'm not qualified to make those suggestions, so I didn't try to in this article.

Supposedly-enlightened white people still play by the same old rules because those rules are stacked in favor of whiteness. The Black people I know, and the Black authors whose work I've read, very much don't think we should keep playing by the same old rules.

Your children are both races (like biracial people in general). That adds its own challenges, both for you and for them!

Well isn't that special ? That adds its own challenges, for sure. What are those challenges?

Let's just talk about the rules. Everyone obeys them - black, white, everyone. Why can't we just make new ones?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrick_Bell

Here's what I wish would happen, though it probably won't.

What all thoughtful people want is a measure of equality, for everyone. That equality should be measured in outcomes, not merely rights in law. We've seen that approach fail.

I believe Derrick Bell made enough substantial improvements to our concept of how we might achieve that measure of equality. His enemies are still numerous, which shows how important he was and is.

Derrick Bell - Wikipedia

@tuban_muzuru totally agree that Derrick Bell made major contributions -- as did all the critical race theorists in his circle including Kimberlé Crenshaw, who I quoted in the post. And yeah, CRT's enemies show how powerful it's possiblities are! And it's frustrating, because in theory the fediverse is trying to adopt new rules for social networks that better align with these visions. But in practice, it hasn't worked out that way. Just because new rules exist doesn't mean white people understand them or adopt them.

Of course there are a lot of stone-cold racists (on the fediverse and in society) whose minds aren't going to change, they're not going to pay any attention to what I have to say. But there are also a lot of white people who see themselves as "good white folx" who might change their behavior ... but old habits die hard. They're the people I'm trying to reach with this post.

The first Bad Idea we must discard is racial identity as anything but social thought and existing relations. But try to get that far with Black people, you're in serious trouble.

@tuban_muzuru I'm not sure Derrick Ball would agree with you about that. In any case, though, thanks for the conversation!

"Social construction" thesis) race and races are products of social thought and relations.

Delgado, Richard; Stefancic, Jean (2012). Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (second ed.). New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-2134-6.

@tuban_muzuru Yes, although that's not necessarily saying racial identity is reduced to social thought and relations. Identity's complex (and intersectional) and different CRT scholars have somewhat different approaches. So I'm really not sure where Ball would come down on this.

Are Italians White or not? When they got off the boats in NYC, they weren't. Irish weren't. Eastern Europeans weren't

They got promoted to White over time.

All this racial identity stuff - look, intersectionality means my kids can be biracial with both identities intact.

Sorry to say it, but this is where White people need to get with the plan. Black people have always known this.

okanogen VerminEnemyFromWithin Aug 14, 2024

@tuban_muzuru @thenexusofprivacy
Are you fucking serious right now with what Black people need to do to educate White people on racism?
WHITE PEOPLE CREATED AND CURATE RACISM! No one is more aware of how racism works than White people! Maybe, rather than assigning yet more work for Black people (not to mention every other IPOC), you stop burdening them and, if you have "read all the books", look inside your own heart, and examine your own actions. This one case in point.

tuban_muzuru Aug 14, 2024

@Okanogen @thenexusofprivacy

Shrug. That goes exactly nowhere with me. Guess how much interaction White people actually have with Black people.

And stop yelling. If you don't want to do anything about the problem of White ignorance, just sit there on your dead ass and whine about how White people don't understand you.

Huggy's Pages Aug 14, 2024

@[email protected] @Okanogen @thenexusofprivacy You are not approaching this discussion in order to engage with it. You're approaching it to argue. Please either change your perspective or stop bothering the people trying to make change.

okanogen VerminEnemyFromWithin Aug 14, 2024

@tuban_muzuru @thenexusofprivacy
Every other thing I've read you say moves me to pity your children and here you go since you want it so bad: go fuck yourself, you racist jackass.

Phracker 4d ago

@thenexusofprivacy
Seriously? Of all the platforms you could attack for anti-blackness you choose the Fediverse? You sound like that lady who accused Star Wars of being anti-black because Darth Vader supposedly became white at the end of RotJ when he took the mask off. Literal "Water is racist." type energy. All you're doing is embodying right-wing stereotypes about oversensitive leftists.

John Egbert Faceclaim / Gil Aug 14, 2024

@thenexusofprivacy oh wow, nice to see this come out! thanks for putting this together and using feedback from the beehaw folks (among others)

@gil my pleasure, glad you like it!

@The Nexus of Privacy I'm someone who usually follows all advice about good Fediverse behaviour to a tee. That is, as far as Hubzilla lets me, as long as it doesn't require me to abandon Hubzilla's own culture in favour of only Mastodon's culture, and as long as it doesn't require me to abandon a number of Hubzilla's key features because Mastodon doesn't have them.

Some may say I'm overdoing the Mastodon-style content warning thing, at least in posts. Hubzilla doesn't support content warning in comments, and if I reply to something, it's always a comment and never a post. Otherwise you'd get one big honking Mastodon-style content warning here. You do get a huge pile of filter-triggering hashtags, though.

Some may say I'm overdoing the image description thing. My image descriptions in alt-text are among the longest in the Fediverse, and these are my short descriptions. My long descriptions for the same images which go into the posts are the longest, most detailed, most explanatory image descriptions in the Fediverse, full stop. And I keep raising my own standards. I only have one image description which I don't consider outdated, obsolete and sub-standard yet.

So I'd normally love to fulfill everything in your post to a tee by my definition of "a tee". And my definition of "to a tee" is everyone else's definition of "Are you completely insane, man?!" But this time, it's more difficult. Call me racist, but it's more difficult.

(1/7)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Hubzilla #CW #CWs #CWMeta #ContentWarning #ContentWarnings #ContentWarningMeta #Hashtag #Hashtags #HashtagMeta #CWHashtagmeta #Filters #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Racist #Racism

Netzgemeinde/Hubzilla

About point 1

First of all, I'm very selective about whose posts I allow in my stream (= Hubzilla lingo for timeline). See, this is not my personal, general-purpose Fediverse outlet. This Hubzilla channel specialises in two topics. The primary topic is OpenSimulator in particular and sometimes 3-D virtual worlds more generally. The secondary topic is the Fediverse beyond Mastodon.

Real life has no room on this channel. Politics have no room on this channel. Real-life social issues have no room on this channel. Not in my posts, not in anyone else's posts either.

And truth be told, of my over 500 contacts, some 85% have no permission to send me posts. I don't want my stream to be cluttered with 99% uninteresting cruft.

Unlike Mastodon, Hubzilla counts and lists all unread messages, and you can open them, thread by thread. I don't want to sit down behind my computer and wade through tons of completely uninteresting posts and comments before I get to the first interesting one, and then wade through tons more of completely uninteresting posts and comments before I get to the next interesting one. That's why I've denied them the permission to send me their posts.

Almost all of them are white cis-het males, by the way.

As for the other 15%, if their off-topic posts get out of hand, I put word filters into action. Hubzilla has optional individual word filters per contact. Same if they boost too much.

Sure, I could connect to a lot more Black users. But that'd be dishonest. Unless they post about OpenSim or about the Fediverse beyond Mastodon, all they've got to say is cruft that'll clutter my stream. So to keep my stream from being cluttered, I'd have to deny them the permission to send me any posts.

Even if they did post about OpenSim or about the Fediverse beyond Mastodon, I might use per-contact filters to filter out as many off-topic posts as possible. And I'd very likely also filter out all their boosts, like I filter out the boosts from some of the remaining 15%.

(2/7)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Hubzilla #OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #Filters #Racist #Racism

Netzgemeinde/Hubzilla

About point 2

I don't use the Fediverse for microblogging anyway. I never came from Twitter to Mastodon. I've never been on Twitter, and this identity of mine has never been on Mastodon or anything else geared towards microblogging first and foremost. I've tried Mastodon, but after many years on Friendica and Hubzilla. And this series of comments took me four or five hours to write and largely re-write, and I touch-type on a full-size hardware keyboard. That's nothing in comparison with how long it takes me to describe an image, but still.

Thus, I don't post that much anyway. And I only repeat (= boost) what I really want my own contacts to see.

On top of that, again, I don't post about real life. This channel is not about real life.

Even then, I know the Fediverse is a minefield. At the very least, I'm treading on eggs almost whenever I post something or comment on something.

I can't possibly know all instances of me being racist or sexist or misogynist or homophobic or transphobic or even only ableist. And believe me, I know that it's impossible for me to describe my own images in a way that isn't ableist to someone. The only way I don't have to throw some group of disabled Fediverse users in front of the bus when describing my images is by not posting the images in the first place and then not mentioning that I could have posted an image.

In fact, chances are that the portraits of my little in-world sister @Juno Rowland I want to post on my specialist OpenSim image channel @Jupiter Rowland's (streams) outlet are disturbingly sexist, maybe enough so to either call for the "moderation" on the (streams) instance to take action or, if that fails, have the whole instance Fediblocked. Every single last one of them with no exception. Or if not all of them, then at least some of the outfits she wears. How am I supposed to know beforehand?

Or maybe I'm racist already for only having white avatars. Never mind that having a Black avatar as a white user is every bit as bad as Blackfacing, and never mind the OpenSim doesn't even provide the means to build convincing Black avatars in the first place.

Considering all this, it doesn't even matter that I've delegated posting portraits, memes and the like to two separate (streams) channels rather than doing it on Hubzilla because (streams) can make Mastodon blank sensitive images out, and Hubzilla can't. It doesn't matter that I've done so to be more inclusive towards people who are easily triggered by certain visual content such as eye contact.

(That's me trying to be intersectional here. You've written yourself this is not only about Black people.)

(3/7)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Twitter #Mastodon #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #Avatar #Avatars #Blackfacing #Homophobic #Homophobia #Transphobic #Transphobia #Ableist #Ableism #Sexist #Sexism #Misogynist #Misogyny #Racist #Racism

Netzgemeinde/Hubzilla

About point 3

To skip right to the end of this point: You wrote...

Still, technology can make a difference; see Mastodon and today’s fediverse are unsafe by design and unsafe by default and Steps towards a safer fediverse for more.

I can't do anything here.

That is, I could. However, it would involve the Fediverse outside of Mastodon. Places which, thanks to their technological features, are magnitudes safer and more private than Mastodon. And that wouldn't be helping. Instead, it'd be bad in many ways.

First of all, as you've written yourself, suggesting people move someplace else is racist. And no, it doesn't matter if they move from Mastodon to Mastodon or from Mastodon to (streams) or even only Hubzilla. The only acceptable solution would be for racism and sexism and misogyny and homophobia and transphobia and ableism etc. etc. pp. to fully disappear from any and all Mastodon timelines. Immediately. With not the faintest trace left behind.

Second, I know that oppressed minorities, Black people first and foremost, cling to Mastodon for their dear lives because, as bad as Mastodon turned out to be, they either don't know that the Fediverse is more than just Mastodon. Or if they do know, they consider everything else in the Fediverse to be even worse. Because it isn't Mastodon. Because they don't really know it, and they don't want to find out the hard way by trying.

Third, I couldn't tell anyone about anything that isn't Mastodon without being a mansplaining reply-guy anyway. I'm dead-serious, I can't.

And fourth, who gives anything upon what a privileged white cis-het male writes who isn't even on Mastodon himself?

(4/7)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #Streams #(streams) #Mansplaining #ReplyGuy #ReplyGuys #Sexist #Sexism #Misogynist #Misogyny #Homophobic #Homophobia #Transphobic #Transphobia #Ableist #Ableism #Racist #Racism

Mastodon and today's ActivityPub Fediverse are unsafe by design and unsafe by default

Part 1 of "Golden opportunities for the fediverse – and whatever comes next"

The Nexus Of Privacy

About point 4

No can do, at least not support for Black instances. That's because all Black instances are Mastodon instances.

I do not support Mastodon. I hate Mastodon with a burning passion, and I hate the wide-spread notion that Mastodon is absolutely the bee's knees even more. My support for Mastodon is limited to filing bugs on its GitHub repository when it misbehaves in interaction with Hubzilla or (streams).

I will so much not support anyone's stay on this utter piece of crud.

Don't get me wrong. The reason why I won't support them is not because they're Black. It's because they're Mastodon.

And besides, you've written yourself that a Black instance is a ghetto. The kind of ghetto that Black people don't want anyone to tell them to move to. Even if they've chosen themselves to have their Fediverse homes there, it's a ghetto all right.

This is also one of the reasons I will no longer suggest (streams) to the Black community, regardless of whether it might actually be a solution for parts of their imminent problems. I'm not going to tell anyone where to move. Even an unsolicited suggestion, even as little as mentioning the existence of a potential Mastodon alternative and its advantages over Mastodon is passive-aggressive.

Even if someone wished "the Fediverse", read, Mastodon to have a certain feature that'd greatly improve safety and privacy, and Hubzilla and (streams) had this feature readily available right now (and this has happened in this very thread), I would no longer mention them unless maybe in a purely white cis-het discussion. Mentioning them to Black people would be like trying to nudge them into a ghetto. And supporting ghettos in any way or other is racist.

Seeing as how much damage any attempt by a non-Mastodon user at helping can deal, it's safer for all involved to not do anything and let people continue believing the Fediverse is only Mastodon.

(5/7)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Safety #FediSafety #FediverseSafety #Privacy #FediPrivacy #FediversePrivacy #BlackFedi #BlackFediverse #Racist #Racism

Netzgemeinde/Hubzilla

About point 5

See three comments above. I'm already trying. But I'm pretty sure I'm not nearly trying hard enough.

I can't call out behaviour that I don't see. And I don't see any racist, sexist, misogynist, ableist, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic etc. behaviour in my stream, simply because I've semi-muted some 85% of my contacts to keep as much off-topic cruft away from my stream as possible.

All I can do is adapt my own way of posting and minimise the damage I'm potentially dealing. But even that's limited. Take image posts, for example. My image descriptions can't possibly not be ableist to someone, even if each one of my images has two descriptions. My pictures of @juno may potentially be sexist to say the least. And I still haven't replaced my profile pictures with images without eye contact to protect neurodiverse users.

My own contacts aren't intersectional enough themselves. I have at least one, maybe two Black women amongst the 15% who are permitted to send me their posts. But even that one trans woman amongst these 15% is white. And I do not follow anyone first who doesn't have anything to say that's interesting within the scope of my channel.

(6/7)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Intersectional #Intersectionality #Ableist #Ableism #Sexist #Sexism #Misogynist #Misogyny #Xenophobic #Xenophobia #Homophobic #Homophobia #Transphobic #Transphobia #Racist #Racism

Netzgemeinde/Hubzilla

About the rest

The goal should not be to learn from mistakes and improve your behaviour. In doing so, people will inevitably get hurt, offending posters will be blocked, moderation will have to get busy, and if moderation doesn't act because an instance is not Mastodon and doesn't work like Mastodon or whatever, whole instances are in danger of being Fediblocked.

It should rather be to learn from other people's past mistakes as well as all guidelines available and do everything perfectly right from the get-go. It's the quickest thing to stop certain bad things from happening in the Fediverse.

Unfortunately, however, this is impossible. And I know that from personal experience.

And even entirely leaving real life out of my posts like I already do doesn't fix this issue.

(7/7)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #FediblockMeta

Netzgemeinde/Hubzilla

@jupiter_rowland thanks for reading the article, and for the detailed response.

What it really comes down to is whether or not you personally want to contribute to the fedvierse's anti-Blackness It ... or try to do something about it. If you do want to make things better, it sounds like you recognize some of the challenges: your choices of what you want to see in your feed lead to you not following Black people, your dislike for Mastodon is stronger your desire to support Black-led instances, the way you advocate for non-Mastodon alternatives means. you come across as a reply guy so you'll do more harm than good if you do, etc.etc.

Putting the fediverse as a whole aside, if you want Hubzilla and (streams) to be less hostile to Black people, you'll need to find ways around those -- after all, you're one of their most prominent advocates on the fediverse.

As you say, you can adatp your own wy of posting, so that's a good place to start. For example, other people are able to advocate successfully for non-Mastodon alternatives, so you could adapt your style. And Hubzilla and (streams) have hashtags, so you could follow the MutualAid tag and boost (and contribute if you have money). And so on

Also I probably should have said something in the "Think before you post" section about rereading things to see whether you've unintentionally said something that's likely to come across as anti-Black. For example, I never said Black-run instances are a "ghetto", so you misquoting me with a term that's usually seen as disparaging -- and then repeating it multiple times in the same paragraph -- is anti-Black.

Similarly when you say

Second, I know that oppressed minorities, Black people first and foremost, cling to Mastodon for their dear lives because, as bad as Mastodon turned out to be, they either don't know that the Fediverse is more than just Mastodon. Or if they do know, they consider everything else in the Fediverse to be even worse. Because it isn't Mastodon. Because they don't really know it, and they don't want to find out the hard way by trying.

it's inaccurate, condescending, and anti-Black.

And I disagree with this:

The goal should not be to learn from mistakes and improve your behaviour.

Sure, it's better not to make mistakes -- and learning from others' mistakes is better. But when you do make mistakes, it's important to learn (as well as apologize). If, that is, you actually want to make the fedierse as a whole -- and Hubzilla and (streams) in particular -- less hostile to Black people.

@The Nexus of Privacy the way you advocate for non-Mastodon alternatives means. you come across as a reply guy so you'll do more harm than good if you do
This is an issue of technological and therefore cultural differences between Mastodon on the one side and Hubzilla on the other.

If I wanted to change that one-sidedly, I'd massively reduce the choice of people whom I can reply to. I'd have to sit and wait until someone who either mentions me out of the blue or who is mutually connected to me acts like the Fediverse is only Mastodon. I'm pretty sure that those who follow me know that the Fediverse is much more than Mastodon. Many of them have started following me to learn such things from me. And those who know me well enough to mention me know that the Fediverse is more than Mastodon, too.

Putting the fediverse as a whole aside, if you want Hubzilla and (streams) to be less hostile to Black people, you'll need to find ways around those -- after all, you're one of their most prominent advocates on the fediverse.
As I've said, for example, sit and wait until someone explicitly wants me to interact with them.

Or hope that my own posts that mention Hubzilla or (streams) happen to be discovered by the right people, regardless of how many Mastodon users have already muted or blocked me.

Increase the possibility of that happening by chopping them into little chunks of no more than 500 characters to make it easier on the eye for Mastodon users, regardless of how many Friendica or even other Hubzilla users will mute or block me if I do that. Even though I'm closer to Friendica and Hubzilla users than I am to Mastodon users.

And Hubzilla and (streams) have hashtags, so you could follow the MutualAid tag and boost (and contribute if you have money).
Hubzilla has hashtags, but it doesn't support following them like Mastodon does. Not unless I subscribe to e.g. mastodon.social's RSS feed generated by the search for a certain hashtag.

But I won't even do that because #MutualAid on mastodon.social alone generates much more posts than all my unmuted contacts combined, all of which, sorry to say, are cruft on my topic-specialised channel. It's bad enough already now when I sit down at my machine in the morning and find "99+" new unread activities, and I have to go through all of them. I can't even tell right off the bat across how many threads these activities are spread. One new post by Eugen Rochko or George Takei boosted to me can drop the unread count because the 167 comments that came afterwards are marked unread along with the post itself. But I could just as well have 40 or 50 new posts with rather few comments to go through.

And that hashtag would flood my stream and my unread activities count with hundreds of single posts over night. And I'd have to load and read them all, one by one. I mean, I can also filter the list of unread activites by name, have only those from the hashtag feed listed and mark them all unread in one fell swoop. But them I wouldn't have to go through the hassle of finding the RSS feed and subscribing to it if I don't read any of it, now, would I?

(streams) can follow hashtags. But my two (streams) channels are even more specialised in topic. It's enough already to receive the same posts and comments from OpenSim contacts twice, once on Hubzilla, once on (streams), because I don't semi-mute my (streams) contacts for a reason that even I don't know. In fact, neither channel exists to follow anyone. I've created both to put content out for which Hubzilla is unfit.

For example, I never said Black-run instances are a "ghetto", so you misquoting me with a term that's usually seen as disparaging -- and then repeating it multiple times in the same paragraph -- is anti-Black.
What I meant are instances specialising in a Black audience, not instances with Black admins and a general audience as mixed as that on mastodon.social.

Similarly when you say
Second, I know that oppressed minorities, Black people first and foremost, cling to Mastodon for their dear lives because, as bad as Mastodon turned out to be, they either don't know that the Fediverse is more than just Mastodon. Or if they do know, they consider everything else in the Fediverse to be even worse. Because it isn't Mastodon. Because they don't really know it, and they don't want to find out the hard way by trying.
it's inaccurate, condescending, and anti-Black.
I've literally read this exact notion from Black users. It's a while ago, and I didn't know that I'd ever have to prove it, so I didn't save that comment anywhere. But it actually really happened.

I suggested trying something else than Mastodon that's safer. The reply I received was that, no, anything that isn't Mastodon is not safe, regardless of what it may be. This notion was backed by, for example, Nazi instances on Pleroma which make the entirety of Pleroma unsafe all over. And everything else that isn't Mastodon is not trustworthy either, partly because these Mastodon users couldn't count on it having moderation on the same level which they were used to from larger Mastodon instances.

They weren't even willing to give anything that isn't Mastodon a try because they were too afraid and too certain to land straight in some racist cesspool with either zero or too little or biased moderation. As for Hubzilla or (streams), they wouldn't have been able to judge them anyway without joining them because the public instances of neither of the two have public streams, so visitors can't see what's going on on that instance. I mean, it's hard to blame them for this decision.

If, that is, you actually want to make the fedierse as a whole -- and Hubzilla and (streams) in particular -- less hostile to Black people.
If I can do that. If that's even possible.

What it really takes is a few Black Fediverse users who aren't afraid of trying something a) of which they can't see how safe it is, b) which so far has a purely white audience (only a few dozen people, about half of whom seem to have their own instances) and c) which handles a great deal differently from Mastodon. But I'd say that the (streams) community in general would be eager to help with that huge step, also seeing as how much advertisement the success of such an endeavour would bring with itself. And due to the high density of instance owners, there's a lot of experience with instance administration as well.

Let the dust of (streams)' "nomadic ActivityPub" redesign settle, let one or a few members of marginalised minorities with enough reach try it out and find it to their liking and tell everyone about it, and it could kick off a little snowball effect. Especially if people discover that PWAs and Web interfaces on mobile aren't that bad if they adapt to mobile well.

After all, @Elena Rossini ✏️✨📸 has just tried Friendica to be able to write about it, and she was blown away to such degrees that she decided to move over permanently. And her blog post about it is expected to have the power to draw a lot more people into Friendica. It certainly can happen.

Speaking of which, I plan to write a "test drive" article about (streams) from a user's point of view and compare it to Hubzilla. I'll write it in a way that Mastodon users who are the huge majority of my contacts can profit from it, too.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #BlackFedi #BlackFediverse

Netzgemeinde/Hubzilla

@jupiter_rowland OK, well, it really doesn't seem like my suggestions are helpful to you. So, thanks for the detailed response, but I really don't see the point in either of us putting more time and energy into this conversation.

jrm4 Aug 14, 2024

#blackmastodon #blackfedi #fediverse #antiracism

SIX.

Recognize that Black people are NOT a monolith.

Recognize that the first and/or loudest Black voices you/see here may or do not SPEAK FOR ALL BLACK PEOPLE.

NO ONE is above being questioned.

Recognize the VALUE of conflict; you can't get to real truth without it and be VERY WARY of anyone apparently trying to eliminate it.

@jrm4 from the end of the section on "Listen more to more Black people – and amplify their voices":

"Keep in mind that Black communities aren't monolithic, so don't just listen to and amplify a few high-profile accounts. Instead, make sure you're getting a range of perspectives – including Black Women, trans, queer, and non-binary Black people, disabled Black people, Afro-Indigenous people, and Black anarchists."

jrm4 Aug 16, 2024

#blackmastodon #blackfedi

Real talk, that's not a big enough range.

You're showing your bias by not saying

e.g. Conservative Black Folks (not me)

and

Capitalist Black folks (maybe me?)

and

Black folks who literally do want to see and hear more from the above so that this place isn't an echo chamber (DEFINITELY me)

The Nexus of Privacy Aug 16, 2024

@jrm4 well, I do say “including”. But there’s certainly room for improvement, I’ll work on the wording over the weekend

The Nexus of Privacy Aug 19, 2024

@jrm4 Here's the revised version:

"Keep in mind that Black communities aren't monolithic, so don't just listen to and amplify a few high-profile US-based accounts. There are Black anarchists and Blak communists as well as Black capitalists, Black conservatives as well as Black progressives and leftists. So make sure you're getting a range of perspectives – including Black Women, trans, queer, and non-binary Black people, disabled Black people, Afro-Indigenous people, and Black people from Africa."