Bullying people because they are new to a group is NOT comparable to being part of a marginalized and brutalized population.
71-year-old first to be arrested over 'prejudicing' nat. security case; warning issued over Tai Po fire mourning site
The police and national security officers have arrested a 71-year-old man in Sheung Shui for alleged sedition.Tom Grundy (Hong Kong Free Press HKFP)
Clerodendrum thomsoniae / Bleeding Glory-bower - All For Gardening
The photos were taken at the University of Connecticut (UCONN), Storrs CT USA in April 2025.Gardener (All For Gardening)
Before I forget to tell you,
You can download LP's from archive.org here
#music #nowplaying #LP #analog #MM
archive.org/details/album_reco…
All you need to know about England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland’s World Cup games
The World Cup draw has been completed with all schedules finalised.(Image: Pool, Getty Images)BYTESEU (Bytes Europe)
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Pixy's Journey and AJ Sadauskas reshared this.
RE: aus.social/@SeaFury/1156759236…
#Chernobyl #Chornobyl #RussianInvasion #Ukraine #USPol #auspol #SlavaUkraini #СлаваУкраїн
We should all refer to Chernobyl as Chornobyl now. Chernobyl is the Russian spelling and Chornobyl is the Ukrainian spelling. Given the vandalism by Russia on the containment unit (among other -things-), they no longer deserve the naming rights #politics
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Michael, Sarah W, Simon Brooke, Alfred M. Szmidt, Stephan Okhuijsen, Gerry McGovern, Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷, Egon Willigh☮gen 🟥, Angry sweet antiracist enby, joene 🏴🍉 and GJ Groothedde 🇪🇺 reshared this.
If only there were a solid decentralized non-US public social media platform.
@mastodonmigration
Mastodon is not likely to pick up steam without big changes to moderation. Bluesky pretty much took the wind that should've been in Mastodon's sails.
And further, I really want a competitor to YouTube. YouTube is super fascist-friendly, and I am getting sick of it.
Would rather an entirely different platform. YouTube is a Nazi safe-space with multiple “pipelines” designed to herd people into fascism.
It's not #Mastodon, it's #Fediverse and we will never get further unless we finally figure this out.
Imagine you couldn't send e-mail from @gmail.com to @yahoo.com .. why do we tolerate this in social networks and walled messengers?
It does not mean we do have to win or something. All we need to be is viable alternative for people, who figured out someone is puppeting them...
@schmaker @mastodonmigration
Those moderation changes need to happen to promote wider adoption. It is holding the platform back.
I remember earlier days of this platform when there were more minorities around. I remember their complaints before they left.
mekka okereke reshared this.
Not sure how English part of Fedi acts like, but local (Czech) part is definitely moderated well
And here comes the biggest benefit - you do not like moderation of your instance? Do your own! :)
@schmaker @mastodonmigration
That solution was not good enough for people in certain marginalized groups.
Telling them to “go find a better instance” when they were being abused led to a large number of them fleeing Mastodon for Bluesky.
@schmaker @mastodonmigration @randahl
@alterelefant @schmaker @mastodonmigration
Doesn't matter. They left because people kept saying “Just block them yourself” or “find another instance.”
They did. At Bluesky, where their concerns were not so flippantly dismissed.
@schmaker @mastodonmigration @randahl
@alterelefant @schmaker @mastodonmigration
I do not remember. The yelling about this was long ago.
I stayed because I do not like advertising-based business models for social media otherwise, I would have left with them.
One of the issues has to do with dogpiling using "followers only" reply controls as explained in the thread below with @scottjenson and @mekkaokereke
Not sure if any progress has been made on this. Perhaps now that there are some new folks at Mastodon GmbH, they will take another look at it.
cc: @Mastodon
mastodon.online/@mastodonmigra…
Mastodon Migration (@mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)
@scottjenson@social.coop @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io @stefan@stefanbohacek.online Great. Just to be really clear. What seems to be the issue is a type of hidden dogpiling or 'brigading.Mastodon Migration (Mastodon)
@mastodonmigration Happy to discuss this further. One of the issues with problems like this is making sure the cure isn't worse than the disease. I'm *not* a moderation expert but I'm happy to discuss this with the team.
Are there specific things that could prevent this type of behavior? I'm going to assume making it "Followers only" makes it harder for moderators to see it?
Not super conversant with the matter, but what has been suggested is to make "followers only" really followers only. That is, to not present the post to all @ mentioned people plus the followers.
However, really think those who have been subjected to this need to weigh in and any solution should come from a real comprehensive understanding of the mechanism of abuse and a real engineering process, as Mastodon has so expertly done in other areas.
@scottjenson That is indeed the main topic, how to balance things. When a cure becomes a greater problem than the initial problem than that is obviously no good.
Scanning content before posting is very controversial because that would censor people. Moderation will always be a reactive thing.
Abuse of "followers only" for dogpiling is something I don't know enough about. Does this create a lot of limitations for moderators to actually see the content?
@alterelefant @mastodonmigration Moderation appears to have multiple goals:
* Prevent the abuse (preemptive)
* Correct the abuser (reactive)
Given the desire for privacy (as a first principle) would it be OK for this to be reactively fixed, e.g. the post is sent to moderators. If not, what else would be helpful?
This 'followers-only dogpiling' issue has been around for a long time. It is a major reason given for why some people, particularly Black people, have abandoned Mastodon. It seems like something that would benefit from soliciting user input first. This would have the advantage of really defining the mechanism of abuse, raising awareness that it is an issue the Mastodon cares about, and achieving buy-in to proposed resolutions.
cc: @mekkaokereke
@scottjenson @alterelefant @mekkaokereke
The first thing that is needed is to acknowledge that this is a systems problem. There seems to a mode of reply that can be exploited to harass people, without it being visible to the larger community.
As such, it is not just a moderation problem. Rather, it is something that may need to be addressed more systematically.
Again, what really needs to happen is to clearly define the issue, and understand how it is being used to isolate and attack users.
@mastodonmigration This is a very valuable insight and one that will help to understand the underlaying problem.
Much more constructive than complaining about people who left a long time ago. This won't be solved by 'anecdotal evidence' and claims that don't contain any metrics.
Let's put in measures that will make #mastodon the safe place that we want it to be. #workInProgress
@scottjenson @mekkaokereke
@alterelefant It doesnt matter as moderation is reactive and hosts easy to spin up (and the biggest instances being open registration). A lot of the harrasment is invisible to other people as well, like happening in DMs or being moderated before you see it. But it doesn't really matter that much that things are moderated if you already received and saw the harassment. And defederation is also not an option because that's basically suggesting segregation as a solution.
Mastodon.social is known as a big source of harassment, but other instances are as well, but blocklists are also reactive and don't contain newly spun up harassment instances. (Who often also block everyone but their target just so only the target can see and report them).
So yes better moderation and moderation tools are needed, especially from the flagship instance. And trust us we have suggested concrete steps to them, they have all been systemically ignored.
@GLaDTheresCake That is indeed how moderation works.
When a racist or other type of unacceptable comment is posted one is able to do something about it. Remove the comment and reprimand or block the sender.
An instance that is clearly a hotbed of hate spreading individuals will indeed be de-federate. That is very effective to block the reach of those comments.
This is how the #fediverse works and how things work on any other online platform.
@alterelefant @GLaDTheresCake @schmaker @mastodonmigration
That's the problem.
When they ran into abusive bigots, people dismissively told them to block them themselves or find another instance. They explained why this wasn't enough and were ignored, so they left.
@tofugolem How is this different to lets say Bsky? I try to understand what Bsky does different?
@alterelefant the onboarding experience is simpler on Bluesky. All friction affects market share.
@schmaker @mastodonmigration @tofugolem
"If you don't like it, do your own!" is a very Mastodon statement, and is why people don't choose Mastodon or the Fediverse.🤷🏿♂️
If I go to buy a car, and I tell the salesman, "Hmm, I wish it had more trunk space." The salesman might say, "Sure! Hold on one minute!" and go to the back room, and come back with some sheet metal, some cans of paint, an airbrush, an arc welder, and a grinder. With a big grin he says, "If you don't like the trunk, you can build your own! Modify your car! It's allowed!"
No.
I'm not modifying my car. I don't want to be an automotive engineer. I just want to drive to work and back.
Rather than start welding, I will just go to another manufacturer, and buy a car that is similar but with more trunk space.
This post is about moderation and safety on Mastodon.
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Kevin Davy, 🍂🌬️Robot Diver🌊, cobalt and Diana Probst, Cambridge Artist reshared this.
I think a lot of people do not understand that for people in certain marginalized groups, things can get very ugly very quickly, and it should not be up to the victims to fix the problem.
@tofugolem @mekkaokereke @schmaker @mastodonmigration
I have never had any issues with moderation… probably because I’m a white woman.
But I also remember people being very critical of requests for alt txt & CWs.
It seems that some users want all freedom & no responsibility.
Using the fediverse requires more thought & effort than elsewhere, about who we follow, how we find them & how we avoid stuff that we don’t want to see. But in return, we’re not deluged with ads & stupid suggestions & other rubbish.
OTOH, if people of some minority groups find that this doesn’t work for them without a disproportionate amount of effort on their part, then we need to do better.
Requests for CW are usually nonsense from white people. I ignore almost all of them.
Because Content Warning is the wrong word. And because the whole Fediverse system of making the poster responsible for all of the personal tastes of the reader is silly.
If I post "Sigh... Got pulled over on the way to work, again. Driving while Black, episode 3,989." then some Mastodon clown will say, "Can you CW posts about racism? That disturbs me! Also, put a 'US politics' label around it. Racism like that is a US problem, and we don't have racism here in my idyllic European mountain town!"🤡
No.
I'm not going to CW every post about my Black life.
Fact 1: Most white folk online don't care about what happens to Black people.
Fact 2: Many Black people experience microaggressions constantly.
This winds up with the Mastodon experience for Black people being constantly annoyed by strangers about why you should content warning everything.
Mastodon Migration reshared this.
"Using the Fediverse requires more effort." Is a choice, and not one that I agree with.
It only requires more effort because the UX for Mastodon has some huge gaps. It doesn't have to have those gaps. It can improve. It is improving. And it doesn't require VC money, dark patterns, or algorithmic feeds to do it. It requires UX expertise, and focus.
I will keep stanning Inkscape until someone stops me! That's what it looks like when an open source project puts as much thought and effort into developing UX expertise as it does into code expertise.
@mekkaokereke @tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration
I’m afraid I don’t understand enough about the technical issues to engage with this.
Twitter made things easy, but it was all about promoting outrage which increases “engagement”, except for those being targeted or triggered.
When I came here, I had to choose to do more to find my people & stay engaged with them, without sealing myself off in a bubble. But I didn’t cop much in the way of abuse, criticism etc. And I’m guessing there’s many others like me who simply don’t know what some other people have to deal with all of the time.
@Susan60 @tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration
"Twitter was all about promoting outrage" is what someone that doesn't know enough Black people says. 🤷🏿♂️
Again, outrage and shock doesn't drive the most engagement. If it did, Twitter would have more revenue than YouTube, 4Chan would have more revenue than TikTok.
Most social media engagement comes from viral content. The viral content that performs the best *by far* is comedy and fun stuff. Jokes and dances.
People still think Twitter was all about outrage, for many reasons, but here are two big ones:
1) Twitter's owners refused to block Trump, no matter what he said
2) Twitter was the only place that a rich racist white person could say an obvious lie, and get called out by a poor Black woman.
At peak, 1 in 5 monthly active Twitter users was Black. Twitter engagement would have gone *up* if they banned the nazis and added safety features for Black women.
@mekkaokereke @tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration
That is an excellent example of people wanting everyone to use CWs to make their online experience pleasant (& awfully bland) for them, while suppressing the needs of anyone to be able to rant about their experience of life. It reeks of privilege.
I think the CW issue has largely disappeared because people are using hashtags & filters instead. And I must admit that I’m less likely to bother opening something with a CW when they occasionally appear.
Whatever system is used, it prompts people to think about others.
I try to hashtag discussions of US politics, because as an Australian, I fully appreciate that not everyone who follows me, particularly Australians, wants their feed dominated by the often idiotic antics of politicians in that country.
And I hashtag stuff about neurodivergence, because while everyone could benefit from learning more about it, not everyone is as interested as me.
And stuff that might really trigger some people.
And alt txt? Why not make the whole thing nicer for people with visibility issues? My app will do it for me, although I always check for accuracy & to reduce the overly saccharine tone that has become the norm. And doing this, or writing my own, often makes me more appreciative of the image.
@Susan60 @tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration
Once I point this out, you won't be able to unsee it: People from all over the world use social media, but most of the people that complain about "put CWs around your US politics posts! No one wants to see that!" are from The UK, EU, Australia and New Zealand, or other "predominantly white, but not the US" places. This is the same trend as "We don't want to hear about you Yanks!" that was on Twitter.
Lots of interesting theories as to why this is.
@Susan60 @tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration
Missing alt-text is again, the fault of bad UX. There are so many features that can make it lower friction to add good alt text, and none of them have been implemented.
* If I post an image that I posted before, and I previously posted it with alt-text, the box should auto-populate with the previous alt-text so that I can make edits to it.
* If I post an image that someone else has posted before, same thing.
* If someone posts an image without alt-text, and I reply to that post with the same image posted again, but with alt-text, it should be possible for the original poster to just read it and be like "Yeah sure!" and click "OK" and have the alt-text provided by me apply to their image.
Etc
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Kim, Grant Denkinson, Roknrol and Kevin Davy reshared this.
@mekkaokereke word! The alt text experience deserves improvement.
Currently I may post 30 posts in a day, and then someone who follows me for this content will complain why I do not add alt text 100 percent of the time.
It is like bringing free cake to the party and then someone complaining the cake has no frosting.
If someone posts an image of a red house in a forest, they should not waste time describing that — an AI system should.
@mekkaokereke @Susan60 @schmaker @mastodonmigration
I try to be really rigorous about alt-text. The way I see it, I am doing it to be accommodating to people with certain disabilities.
However, I will confess that I do not bother doing this on platforms where it is not the norm, so I appreciate the occasional badgering about this topic.
If an image has exif data field 'Image Description' populated use its content to autofill the alt text.
@mekkaokereke @tofugolem @schmaker @mastodonmigration
I don’t filter at all, but don’t follow back if all someone writes about is their national politics.
I’m a political animal, but I am interested in other things as well.
As for the US thing, there are simply a lot of you! And your politics is feral atm, so it can get a bit overwhelming. (Obviously it’s much worse for those in the US…😩)
I do write a lot about neurodivergence. If people aren’t interested and they unfollow or block me as a result, so be it.
I do get upset if that happens because of a misunderstanding. Usually that is the result of incorrect assumptions & judgements. Most autistic people experience that, some more than others due to their tone/manner, which is misunderstood.
People who do not want to read about US politics are not a marginalized group being abused by a majority. Not comparable.
Your request to not want to see US politics, or any topic, is fair. Especially given your view that it is your responsibility to filter, not others' responsibility to not talk about it.
Many people are so opposed to LLM based systems, that they've given up on regular statistical based regression filters. 🤷🏿♂️
You should be able to list topics that you don't want to hear about, and your client should score posts, and hide things that you don't want to see. You can do this without transformers.
Alternatively, BlueSky has composable moderation. Some human can read posts and tag as "US politics." Then you can subscribe to that filter, to not see it. Low effort for posters, good result for readers.
Telling people to add hash tags to everything is silly. It only makes sense from the position of someone in the default category, because they don't really think that they'll have to adorn everything they write with:
#white #male #whiteman #man #cis #dude #bro #ablebodied #whitepeople #pinkskinned #majority #justaguy #guy #caucasian #presumeddefault #stuffjustworksforme #benefitofthedoubt #thoughtoffirst
They presume themselves to be the default, and hash tags are for everyone else that deviates from their view of the world with them at the center.
@mekkaokereke @Susan60 @schmaker @mastodonmigration
Content warnings are only valid if they might trigger someone who has suffered trauma, and I confess I need to get better about that.
I do not give a fuck about people who complain about CW for politics or meat consumption, but I should be more diligent about rape, child molestation, and the like. Those requests for CW are perfectly reasonable in my opinion.
Let's wrap it other way - user is choosing from two ways of soc-neting at this moment:
1. Here you have commercial soc-net. We will sell your data, check your bedroom and wrap ad shit around your face with zero-to-none moderation. And you have nowhere else to go! Enjoy!
2. Here you have free soc-net without any ads being run and funded by volunteers. And if you do not like how we manage it, you can either choose other one or make your own. Welcome abroad.
I'd definitely go for 2 :)
And actually - buying a car lately somewhat matches the case 1: "You want a car that's not sniffing on you? GTFO our dealerships! Every single one!" :)
Of course you would choose 2. Which is why you're here.
But I'm staying because there's a better option:
3) Make Fediverse better, so that everyone doesn't have to roll their own, when millions of people want exactly the same thing. That's silly and inefficient. Just make a model of car that people want.
That's what we're doing.
I very much appreciate your presence, although I dearly miss certain African-American techy types. Some of them had a sophisticated understanding of moderating systems and policies, as well as the effects both had on marginalized people. I felt like I was learning from reading their posts.
mekka okereke reshared this.
@schmaker @mastodonmigration @mekkaokereke
They did exactly what you suggest. They left Mastodon for Bluesky. This is why Mastodon stopped growing and Bluesky started growing more rapidly.
Moderation matters.
If moderation falls below a certain threshold, the result is always Nazis and pedophiles. Just look at 4Chan or Twitter.
Don't agree with this. Implementation of quote posting was a great example of how Mastodon took a feature with potential vectors for abuse and did an excellent job of soliciting user input and in the end building a capability with excellent trust and safety protections.
It is really hard to get everything right, and Mastodon has shown a careful approach to rolling out new capabilities IMO.
1/
@esoteric_programmer @tofugolem @schmaker @mekkaokereke
It is really hard to address every potential exploit, and the issue under discussion here is a case in point. "Followers only" is an important posting mode that in many ways distinguishes Mastodon from other systems that do not provide such quasi-private posting options. However, it can be exploited. So, what can we do about it? It's a systems engineering question. Same as how to do QPs safely?
2/2
People in marginalized groups were being abused, and moderators dismissed their concerns. They were told "find a different instance" or "just block them" putting the onus on the victims instead of the abusers. This is why they left for Bluesky.
See other response.
Mastodon needs big changes in moderation to attract certain major minority groups to seriously compete with Bluesky.
But your observation is noted.
@
Paging @EUCommission
It would be really nice if somebody there could set aside their personal career goals for a moment and speak some truth to power about how messed up this is.
One simple law I’d like the EU to pass:
No politician (elected or standing for election), no government department, and no company support channel may use any third-party platform that requires people to agree to terms of service to be able to read publications or messages.
That would eliminate all political and most corporate uses of X, Facebook, Instagram, and so on.
Want to run a web site? A Mastodon instance? Fine. Want to pay someone to host it for you? Fine, as long as anyone can access it without any tracking or anything that would require consent under the GDPR or equivalent, of if they are outsourced administration but you have complete control and ownership of the platform.
@david_chisnall it is an interesting thought. And I agree something needs to be done to move politicians out of the commercial vice.
However, this particular suggestion would probably not be possible, because people move in and out of politics. So a non-politician may get to a million followers on X or Facebook, then start a party, and then lose this social media platform.
No politician will ever vote for legislation like that.
@david_chisnall Plus, we must take into account that populists and radicals will simply ignore the requirements and publish content where they can spread propaganda. This will put honest politicians at a disadvantage.
In addition, a large number of people ‘do not follow politics’ and only see random posts in their feed that someone shares. If there are fewer posts from good people, this will also have a negative impact
Alternatively: If a site is never used for legitimate communication then it's really easy to see that propaganda is propaganda.
Estonia’s Isamaa party just gave political violence a pass
By welcoming a TikTok provocateur who joked about shooting his opponents, Estonia’s conservative party Isamaa is flirting with the same destructive forcesBYTESEU (Bytes Europe)
One last post *before* the Finch West LRT -- Toronto Line 6 opens tomorrow. This whole experience has been deeply frustrating. I want the line to work because even if I wouldn't have built it, we did and now we should get maximum benefit. The City could do a lot to fix things, will they?
Last month, China launched more than one rocket a day. Now that's progress.
Monstera prop opinions 😅 - All For Gardening
Took 4 leaves off the top of my monstera that went wonky, I split that into two propagations and put this one with long aerial roots directly into soil afterGardener (All For Gardening)
in the capital of Latvia, 1,816,130 shares of capital are given for 1 euro
On Thursday, it was already reviewed by the Finance and Administrative Affairs Committee, headed by Mayor Viesturs Kleinbergs.BYTESEU (Bytes Europe)
Lithuania’s Vilnius airport closes again after suspected balloon sightings
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating theBYTESEU (Bytes Europe)
OpenAI Is Suddenly in Major Trouble
What was once a healthy lead over OpenAI's competition thanks to its blockbuster AI chatbot ChatGPT has turned into a razor-thin edge.Victor Tangermann (Futurism)
Poland excluded from talks on ending Ukraine war with Russia
For the upcoming meeting in London on December 8, which will bring together the leaders of France, the UK, Germany, and Ukraine, Warsaw was not invited.BYTESEU (Bytes Europe)
Emilio ʕ̡̢̡ʘ̅͟͜͡ʘ̲̅ʔ̢̡̢
in reply to Tofu Golem • • •mekka okereke
in reply to Emilio ʕ̡̢̡ʘ̅͟͜͡ʘ̲̅ʔ̢̡̢ • • •@Minimac @tofugolem @laguiri @schmaker @mastodonmigration
Emilio, try this out: instead of framing things in terms of the negatives of BlueSky, name it in terms of the positives of Mastodon.
And don't just reframe a negative as a positive, as in "I like Mastodon because it doesn't have Ads like other social media." That's still a comparative negative. Frame it just in terms of the positives of Mastodon.
I find that much more constructive.
Tofu Golem
in reply to mekka okereke • • •@mekkaokereke @Minimac @laguiri @schmaker @mastodonmigration
I'm a salty bastard, and I'm gonna be negative. Those ads on other social media platforms make those platforms an inherent threat to democracy (e.g. the Cambridge Analytica thing).
Sorry for being a curmudgeon.
Sorry for interjecting, I'm just really surly about the things that have been done to manipulate the general population.
mekka okereke
in reply to Tofu Golem • • •@tofugolem @Minimac @laguiri @schmaker @mastodonmigration
Cambridge Analytics is not nearly as effective as people pretend that it is.
The percent of white voters that choose the fashy option has not changed before, during, or after Cambridge Analytica era. 🤷🏿♂️
And Black US voters were targeted by Cambridge Analytica *the most* and it had *the least* impact on their voting patterns.
hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/114…
The things that have a much greater impact on voting patterns, are national newspapers and TV, and the framing of stories.
And the biggest counter to political interference in the US was... Black users online. We uncovered the disinfo networks before everyone else, for reasons I s covered before that are obvious once you see them.
mekka okereke :verified: (@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io)
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Mastodon Migration and diana 🏳️⚧️🦋🌱 reshared this.
Tofu Golem
in reply to mekka okereke • • •@mekkaokereke @Minimac @laguiri @schmaker @mastodonmigration
The point is that this form of influence is POSSIBLE, which I do not think we should tolerate.
And it is unfair to use African-American voters as an example. They are a lot less, erm, stupid about political influence than white people.
mekka okereke
in reply to mekka okereke • • •@tofugolem @Minimac @laguiri @schmaker @mastodonmigration
Why having more Black folk on your social media platform is so effective at protecting you against foreign disinformation campaigns.
hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/111…
mekka okereke
2024-02-17 18:39:18
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Mastodon Migration
in reply to mekka okereke • • •Fascinating