"Is Mastodon becoming an echo chamber?"

I dunno. What even is 'Mastodon' in this conversation?

I'm on dice.camp because I like their moderation & federation decisions. If you're on a different instance, how "echo-y" your "echo chamber" is may vary.

But if you don't like it when people are picky about who they associate with & how, just go hang out on mastodon.social or whatever.

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.

@artemis

I'm no expert on any of this but I'm thinking about

1. What's the difference between a real-life cafe that doesn't welcome brown people, marxists, women, muslim people .... and a mastodon instance that doesn't?

Is an instance more like someone's home, and so they have control over who can enter?

2. Are instances "public spaces" or "public squares" with the associated rights that we have and don't have eg privacy, as well as obligations not to hurt others?

#mastodon #fediverse