"I’m on Mastodon, begrudgingly.... My harassers are also on Mastodon; some have multiple accounts. The blocking feature is like horror house anxiety game- I block when I see their new account, hoping I’ve now blocked all of them but knowing I probably never will. Because it’s a federated system, and you can have accounts on multiple servers, it means there’s multiple accounts I have to block to create some digital safety and distance."
-Caroline Sinders (🔗 next post)
HT @jdp23
I'm posting Sinders' quote today because I'm continuing to reflect on architecture here, not least due to experiences I continue to have with targeted harassment
This is annoying, obviously
Far worse, though, *I cannot in good faith recommend Mastodon to anyone who's likely to be targeted*--and folks who use this place comfortably may want to think about this, as well
Here's what I wrote last year (🔗 in next post)
(sorry, didn't link earlier, was actually away from screens, gasp)
Plenty of people don't have a problem with harassment on Mastodon but this does not mean that harassment on Mastodon isn't a massive, massive issue. I've been thinking about this more and more, the longer I'm here (Oct 22)
Sincere thanks as always to everyone who helps keep others safe here and also everyone who thinks on the hard problems 💚
https://openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/JoCI/article/view/6644
Wait, just this? No other context? This is from 2022. No "how it started / how it's going"? Who is @carolinesinders? Or @sinders? I'm supposed to just know? I guess I'm not clued in enough to be a follower. 🫤
Ok, having milked what I could from the article before being prompted to log in, yes, whiteness is an issue. Yes, the luxury... wait...
Whiteness is a problem *everywhere*. Are we singling out Mastodon?
Oh, I get it. For not being the exception. (Not being sarcastic.)
Yeah, we always think we're the white knights. (Um... <embarrassed eye shifting gif at unintended pun (who needs 1,000 words?)>)
Maybe I should just go back to Twitter?
Huh. It sure seems to me like @inquiline's replies has the context, for example:
"I''m posting Sinders' quote today because I'm continuing to reflect on architecture here, not least due to experiences I continue to have with targeted harassment."
And for how it's going:
"I cannot in good faith recommend Mastodon to anyone who's likely to be targeted--and folks who use this place comfortably may want to think about this, as well"
And while harassment is certainly a major issue I also hear a lot of complaints from women about other cultural issues here. So it's worth thinking about your response and how it contributes to the climate here. Do you want Mastodon to have a reputation for being the kind of place where a woman posting about harassment gets a hostile reply from a guy who hasn't even bothered to read the thread?
If so, well done! But if that's not how you want people to see Mastodon ... consider a different approach.
And as for the whiteness ... we're not just singling out Mastodon for "not being the exception". We're talking about the culture on Mastodon that's seen by many Black people as worse than Bluesky or Threads, and in its own way as bad as Xitter. Check out some of the links in the first paragraph of https://privacy.thenexus.today/start-making-the-fediverse-less-toxic/
it certainly might be a client issue, or just some of the weirdnesses of federation. In general before being snarky about lack of context, it's worth going off to check the thread on the original account's profile. That's all the more true when there's a race, gender, etc power imbalance!
Your account says you've been here since 2017. Is this really first time you've realized that you don't always see everything in a conversation without checking the original profile?
At any rate, the thread is there, you didn't read it, and you could have by making a few clicks. So let me rephrase my previous statement:
It's worth thinking about your responses and how they contribute to the climate here. Do you want Mastodon to have a reputation for being the kind of place where a woman posting about harassment gets a hostile reply from a guy who hasn't read the thread, and then when it's pointed out to him that his response was problematic doubles down on how it's not his fault rather than apologizing?
If so, well done! But if that's not how you want people to see Mastodon ... consider a different approach.
Ok. So, this is Masto in a nutshell.
Technical competence required, diligence required, if you don't, then you're just another example of white privilege and we don't want to talk to you, go away.
Honestly. I didn't get my Captain Midnight decoder ring.
Maybe on your well-connected instance this is obvious, and too bad for the people on less well-connected instances. They deserve what they get for... lack of diligence.
I can see the forces at play here, driving ppl apart.
Sometimes you have to click "open in browser" to see the whole thread.
It's a federation thing, relevant to threads where you're not following the person who wrote it: sometimes one post will have reached your instance and the rest of the thread not, depending on who's boosted what.
I think the problem was that there was zero indication that there was any sort of context. I feel like there's a bunch of people On Here who just post stuff as if "of course you know the context, and if you don't, you're not worthy," and sometimes it just irks me no end.
But thanks for the tip; much better than making assumptions about me.
@inquiline @jdp23 "Mastodon is a semi-fun place, where I have a private account, to occasionally check in on people, but it’s lack of built-in safety tools makes it an impossible place for me to be full time. "
Context: this is a person who faces persistent harassers -- wow this is really helping me appreciate how easy I have it being the default privileged user on the internet, and how safety features really do matter to people.
Yeah. One of the distinctive features of harassment on Mastodon is that because of the way federation works, it's very easy not to see it unless (a) you're following the specific people being targeted and (b) they make themselves even more of a target by calling out the harassment loudly.
So there's this strange dynamic where many cis white people see it as a social network filled with nice people (because that really is their experience) -- even though the reality is that their experience isn't shared by everybody.
Although of course it's also true that many white people in other contexts are also very good at not seeing harassment of people of color, many cis people n other contexts are also very good at not seeing harassment of trans and non-binary people, and many guys in other contexts are also very good at not seeing harassment of women. So it's not just, or even primarily, a technology issue!
That said, there's general consensus that the tech here does accentuate the problem.
I see the harassment. I am even sometimes at the receiving end.
I have been harassed for my ethnicity, my political views against Zionism and in support of socialism, my gender, and the fact I'm an open transgender and transsexual woman who supports women's rights.
@inquiline
It's like a buzzer goes off somewhere and another one of these guys is assigned to jump into your replies and help illustrate the point you're making
tools for commensality 🧿
Petra van Cronenburg
John Lusk
Jon
Jennifer Moore 😷
Semitones
Jacqueline
ophiocephalic 🐍