As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022

Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.

@Gargron That is a personal choice and one which I totally respect. But I do think Mastodon should be big enough, and open enough, to allow an "AI community" to form, even thrive.

Too many people in my replies don't seem to agree with that.

@cratermoon @scottjenson @Gargron This is a very rich ethics question hidden in a specific example.

Would you permit or allow any community with which you disagree to participate on a platform, even if you’re not forced to participate?

A shortlist of thought experiments, to broaden the perspective, some of which are already here, some not…
- The oil & gas community
- Forestry workers (logging)
- The cryptocurrency community
- Workers at a chick rendering plant
- The finance industry
- Adult content creators
- Religious communities

Is there a litmus test for topics that you can or can’t discuss on the fediverse? Specific servers sure, but the whole fediverse?

Does that align with the values put forth by mastodon or the fediverse in general?

I don’t have the answers.

@trisweb @cratermoon @scottjenson @Gargron by definition, no. Literally anyone can spin up a server and talk about anything/try to get more folk to listen…

But other folk have to want to listen to whatever they are saying. Servers and individuals can just decide not to. No one is guaranteed an audience, just the ability to speak.

@pmdj @dalias

That is the exact opposite of what I said. I'm saying the fediverse gives you the tools to follow/block/filter/ to your hearts content to create the space you want.

What is corrosive is people ACTIVELY going after people they don't agree with. Just look at the replies to my post to get small sample.

My point was, I thought, very simple, and very reasonable: we should be more welcoming of more opinions. If you don't like them, then don't follow them. That should be the fedi-way. To be clear, I'm NOT endorsing AI, it just used it as an example.

Instead I'm living the very point I was trying to make. I've been told to leave, called a racist, and had ad hominem attacks leveled at me.

Now to be fair, my original post was poorly worded. I've owned that
https://social.coop/@scottjenson/116358195717244835

@scottjenson @pmdj No, we absolutely should NOT be "welcoming more opinions". "Diversity of thought" is NOT a value. Some opinions are wrong. They may have a right to exist, as long as they're not nazi opinions (those have no right to even exist), but that doesn't mean we have to welcome them. It's perfectly fine to tell people off for having bad opinions, to shun them, to let them share those bad opinions only with whoever is willing to listen to them and not in our circles.

If that causes them to leave fedi, that's not a bad thing.

@dalias @pmdj

So who watches the watchers?

Are you the god the decides who can stay or who should go? Who gave you that power?

@dalias @pmdj

This is the curse of the fediverse, a small cadre of usually old white guys that feel the need to "Educate" everyone around them. This is their duty, the world needs them and will eventually thank them for purifying the timeline of heretics.

@dalias @pmdj

I'm making a post on my timeline that you can ignore. There is a BIG difference to getting in someone's mentions and correcting them.

This is my whole point. We are each on the fediverse and we say what we want. You can like, ignore, whatever.

I'm NOT getting in anyone's mentions, I'm not scolding, I'm ASKING that we are more inclusive because it's the more humane and helpful thing to do, but hey, you can disagree, that's cool.

@scottjenson after sleeping on it, I am choosing to respond because I cannot let your narrative go unchallenged, since you speak as a "Product Strategy Advisor to Mastodon Core team". Your intentions are probably good, but the words you chose to publish read a lot like unexamined privilege and a deep misunderstanding of lived reality of many people in this federation:

• equating the experience of mass harassment on minorities to "journalists not getting engagement" is a slap in the face to both the victims of harassment and the volunteers (operators, moderators and developers) who keep this federation running. This reads extremely tone deaf and patronizing, and you antagonized a lot of people with that comparison

• engagement dynamics being different than on mainstream parasocial platforms is not a bug, it is the main feature! Many (most?) people are here seeking a refuge from the exploitative attention economy and prioritize mutual connections above the parasocial one-way audience management that most journalists have been trained to seek out. I would not say that journalists are not welcome per se, but their usual methods definitely are

• your example of "AI journalism" was very poorly chosen and contributed to the polarization. GenAI is NOT a neutral technology: it is the technological arm of an anti-social, parasitic and regressive societal project. This societal project is built on "values" that are the polar opposite of those that most instances in this federation uphold and is destroying countless lives, including those of people who are the rockbed of the Fediverse. Your replies minimizing this harm "because they're not nazis" read at lot like unexamined privilege

• "big tent" attitudes are a red flag to many of us, because they usually end with marginalized people being pushed away while "the good gents" look away from the violence. Tolerance is a social contract, and people who promote anti-social views don't benefit from that social contract

The Fediverse is the opposite of an echo chamber! I picked up sewing and tried crochet, learned about insects and wild birds. I learned about the lives of people with chronic pain, several forms of neurodivergence and am following several blind authors. I read 10 thousands pages last year thanks to many book recommendations. It is one of the very few places that still feels human, and you are rubbing against people who fight to defend that.

I recommend you seek out feedback about this thread from several women and think about how you can come back to the conversation with a less antagonistic and tone-deaf attitude. We need people like you, but we don't need the "big tent" attitude you exhibited on this thread.