"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
@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.
tools for commensality 🧿
Semitones
Jon
Jacqueline