I thought a big part of the value of Fedi is how much choice we have over who we associate with.

Why is it a bad thing that people who are choosey about their online experience don't want to listen to AI-shills?

It's interesting how important it is to some people that you supposedly shouldn't be choosey about who you associate with.

The person I saw talking about this framed the "problem" of AI-shills being "unwelcome" on Fedi (not sure I buy that either—they seem to have their own corners of Fedi) as the same thing as Black users being harassed/unsafe/not included, which is just absurd.

It's very "blue lives matter" coded, ya know? Like, being a techbro is not an inherent part of who you are.

They have to frame it as a diversity issue because they want to distract from the fact that it is a *consent* issue!

Not wanting to associate with Black people is bigotry, but not wanting to associate with AI-shills is just protecting your peace. These are not the goddamn same, & it's really sinister asking people to pretend they are.

It is weird to insist people should HAVE to interact with you, regardless of your behavior. It shows a lack of respect for people's agency & choice.

In the year 2026, it is the height of bad faith to argue that moderating online community & maintaining spaces that are free & honest & not controlled by techno-fascists is somehow regressive.

We are living with the results of their online takeover. How are you going to act like people are overreacting when they say they want to choose carefully which types of interactions belong in the spaces they are in?

How are you going to pretend it doesn't matter? Online manipulation helped give us the global rise of fascism.

Insisting that we may not exercise our own discretion in our association with others online is insisting people expose themselves to potential harm & surrender to the outcomes desired by bad actors.

It is just too goddamn late for this show of naivety to be convincing.

Bad actors will always try to hijack "diversity" to force us to accept actual enemies into our camp.

"AI", as it exists now, is a tool of our enemies: they use it to enshrine bias into employment processes so it no longer requires a bigoted human in the loop. They use AI to devalue the work of writers, researchers, coders, artists & more. They use AI to automate decisions of who should be bombed, who should starve, & who should be erased/ignored/& excluded.