Post Ab7X9GHunGTIMMZy2C by earthworm@kolektiva.social
(DIR) More posts by earthworm@kolektiva.social
(DIR) Post #Ab7X9GHunGTIMMZy2C by earthworm@kolektiva.social
2023-10-24T16:10:18Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
Puh, a really controversial topic that seems to cause strong emotions by many people on Mastodon. I am not one of the big fish involved in the discussion. But I think it is important because how our community interacts depends on ourselves.
First, I want to say that shared blockslists can make sense. Basic lists to filter out the really bad shit. And maybe some stricter versions with keywords to facilitate new instances the creation of a safe space for certain groups (ok, here we could discuss why not blocking ALL kinds of harrassment, but in practice -and in the spirit of the fediverse as a community of distinct, but federated instaces- different people have varying levels of tolerance and set the threshold differently).
Currently, I see many posts about TBS, both in favour and against.
Here I wanted to share my thoughts about TBS. I see basically the following problems:
- The trusted instances are hard-coded and not independent from each other (correct me, if I am wrong). I think that a lot of controversy about TBS comes from concerns about the influence of one of the persons at mastodon.art, both directly because they are used as trusted source but also because of indirect influence on the other instances via their moderation-discord channel. Everywhere are power dynamics. Also informal hierarchies don’t disappear if we don’t call them out.- There is no appealing mechanism (TBS-banned instances would need to go begging on their knees to the “trusted instances” power circle). There is usually no “defederation will last for 6 months” or similar.- There is no mechanism to resolve the issue of binarity of defederation: It is the nuke of moderation tools. However, the problem is that there are no intermediate tools to separate real nazi/pedo shit from “many months ago there was a disagreement regarding moderation style”. TBS was announced to be for the really bad stuff, not for more controversial/personal decisions.- Blocklists are a *huge* responsibility. It is really easy to fuck things up (on purpose and by accident), especially if the blocklists are widely adopted. It is crucial to have very, very good mechanisms in place to avoid power issues. Therefore it is important to be open to (constructive) criticism.
Just to try out, I looked how kolektiva.social (the lovely anarchist instance I call my home for almost a year now) scores on TBS.
Currently, kolektiva.social is suspended by 4 and silenced/limited by 2 of the “trusted instances serving as reference for the The TBS blocklist. If TBS would be widely dopted by the fediverse, this would mean adiós to my beloved instance*
😢 I have to admit that I lost a little bit of track of the multiple blocklist projects:
- The Bad Space https://tweaking.thebad.space/ - GardenFence: https://gardenfence.github.io/ (significant overlap with TBS, a predecessor?)- Seirdy.one’s blocklists https://seirdy.one/posts/2023/05/02/fediverse-blocklists/ (discontinued, the author’s reasons are totally worth reading)- Oliphant’s blocklists https://writer.oliphant.social/oliphant/the-oliphant-social-blocklist (developed on the base of Seirdy.one’s lists, not sure whether it is continued)- FediSeer https://gui.fediseer.com/ (maintained @Db0 by right now, my favourite!)
- And the good old fediblock hasthag
Pesonally, I see Fediseer as a promising project. It has the optionto select the instances you “trust” and get their blocklists. It is really not necessary (and inefficient) that the mods of *every* of the 10-20 k Mastodon instances have to dive through all the really, really bad places to block them. There is still the issue of structural power dynamics of the instances that are used by default, but I understand that you have to begin somewhere and with the really, really bad instances, there should be less of a controversy.-
However, seeing the current heat of the debate, it is important for me to make also the following statement:
The level of harassment and personal attacks that the person most visible behind TBS ( @Are0h ) is receiving from many sides is totally out of place. There are unclear power dynamics that should be addressed. Maybe this person is not the best at taking criticism, but a human being enjoying some privileges while suffering also discrimination. And also yes, Mastodon has definitevely a whiteness problem (and harassing a prominent black person provides exactly their point). Listen to black people when they talk about discrimination. Listen to queer people when they talk about discrimination.
But please, folks. Try to take a few breaths before writing an outrage post. Destructive group dynamics don’t seem to be what we need to resolve our problems. Maybe some of you will hate me for this. My apologies. I don't want to dismissing your experience, but to bring us back to the table to find ways to first keep the really bad shit out while trying to make the fediverse a more welcoming place for all.sorry for the hippie speech. English is not my first language, s
* Of course, a very valid question is also: why is kolektiva.social considered by such a considerable proportion of the set of instances that some people consider “trusted sources” as worth of being defederated because of “Moderation issues, Poor moderation, abusive/harrassment behaviour” (on mastodon.art’s ‘about’ page even “racism”). I recall a complex conflict *last year*. However, whether kolektiva.social is currently a place for abusers/racists, is not really an assessment that can o should be made by a privileged white person like me, I guess.#TBS #TheBadSpace #Federation #Defederation #Blocklists #SharedBlocklists #FediSeer #Outrage @foolishowl