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JustinHanagan
JustinHanagan @ JustinHanagan @kbin.social
Posts
18
Comments
51
Joined
2 yr. ago

"A Billion Nazis at the Table" - The Fediverse model proves contextual moderation by real humans is both easy and affordable. The presence of Nazis on corporate social media implies at least a tacit a

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  • The success metric is a vibrant, happy community, not MAUs or engagement numbers, so they make decisions accordingly.

    YES well said. An instance is measured by it's quality, not it's profitability.

    • "A Billion Nazis at the Table" - The Fediverse model proves contextual moderation by real humans is both easy and affordable. The presence of Nazis on corporate social media implies at least a tacit a

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  • Any civility rule that is enforced with greater priority than (or in the absence of) a “no bigotry” rule serves only to protect bigots from decent people.

    There's a saying I think about a lot that goes "The problem with rules is that good people don't need 'em, and bad people will find a way around 'em".

    The best thing about human volunteer mods vs automated tools or paid "trust and safety" teams, IMO, is that volunteer humans can better identify when someone is participating in the spirit of a community, because the mods themselves are usually members of the community too.

    • "A Billion Nazis at the Table" - The Fediverse model proves contextual moderation by real humans is both easy and affordable. The presence of Nazis on corporate social media implies at least a tacit a

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  • Yeah, I think it's important to keep in mind that the Fediverse doesn't solve any of the problems that come up when a bunch of people talk about stuff they're passionate about. The problems Federation solves is the incentivizing and spotlighting of the sorts of toxic behavior we see on corporate social media.

    • "A Billion Nazis at the Table" - The Fediverse model proves contextual moderation by real humans is both easy and affordable. The presence of Nazis on corporate social media implies at least a tacit a

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  • If a Fediverse instance grew so big that it couldn't moderate itself and had a lot of spam/Nazis, presumably other instances would just defederate, yeah? Unless an instance is ad-supported, what's the incentive to grow beyond one's ability to stay under control?

    • "A Billion Nazis at the Table" - The Fediverse model proves contextual moderation by real humans is both easy and affordable. The presence of Nazis on corporate social media implies at least a tacit a

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  • I fear if these federated systems do grow popular enough

    If an instance did grow "too big to moderate", it would surely be defederated from, yeah? I'm struggling to think of a situation where responsible admins from well-moderated instances would willingly subject their users to spammers from an instance (no matter how big) that can't control itself.

    • "A Billion Nazis at the Table" - The Fediverse model proves contextual moderation by real humans is both easy and affordable. The presence of Nazis on corporate social media implies at least a tacit a

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  • The key word here is "large". From the article:

    "[Fediverse] instances don’t generally have any unwanted guests because there’s zero incentive to grow beyond an ability to self-moderate. If an instance were to become known for hosting Nazis —either via malice or an incompetent owner— other more responsible instances would simply de-federate (cut themselves off) from the Nazi instance until they got their shit together. Problem solved, no 'trust and safety' required"

    • "The (Trust and) Safety Dance" - When an ostensibly “social” company has a Trust and Safety department, try and see it for what it is: a sign that failure is an option.

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  • You're not incorrect, but I think the thing that differentiates this era of social media from the "before times" (I was there too) is that it's significantly easier for non-techies to join. The internet nowadays has significantly more diversity of perspectives than back then. Those differences are exploited and exaggerated by social media companies to generate engagement. It seems to m that the fediverse model allows for diversity and sanity (or at least not algorithmically-encouraged insanity).

    Thanks for reading and the comment!

    • "Our Wire Mothers" - It's important for us to be careful that our technology does not supplant the human need for socialization.

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  • I personally wouldn't judge any Yankees fan living in Boston who chooses to remain closeted about their allegiances and only discusses sports online.

    • "Our Wire Mothers" - It's important for us to be careful that our technology does not supplant the human need for socialization.

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  • Absolutely. The essay does actually address that towards the end:

    There’s no shame in turning to the internet for supplementing socialization when doing it “better” isn’t feasible. It’s easy to imagine situations where someone might not have access to a community that keeps them sane. A gay teenager stuck in rural Alabama. A woman born into a controlled religious society. A New York sports fan in Boston. Some days in life, the best we can hope for is making it until tomorrow in one piece.

    • "Where can I keep all this time that I'm saving?" Thank to Silicon valley, mankind is finally free of drudgery to focus on what's important in life.

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    • "Where can I keep all this time that I'm saving?" Thank to Silicon valley, mankind is finally free of drudgery to focus on what's important in life.

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  • Now you're catching on

    • "Where can I keep all this time that I'm saving?" Thank to Silicon valley, mankind is finally free of drudgery to focus on what's important in life.

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    • "Where can I keep all this time that I'm saving?" Thank to Silicon valley, mankind is finally free of drudgery to focus on what's important in life.

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  • The example you mention is actually in the essay itself. But yes, it would be nice if the technology companies could work on a way to automate the stuff we don't enjoy doing instead of the stuff that brings meaning into our lives.

    • An EXTREMELY Simple Guide to Mastodon (for when someone says it's too complicated to catch on)

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  • Absolutely. And to be fair, "a chance at fame and attention" is the sales pitch from the commercial platforms. They don't want users having "meaningful conversation". There's a great essay/rant from Cat Valente called "Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things".

    • An EXTREMELY Simple Guide to Mastodon (for when someone says it's too complicated to catch on)

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  • ✨much elegance✨

    • An EXTREMELY Simple Guide to Mastodon (for when someone says it's too complicated to catch on)

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  • No, it does. Sign up is extremely straightforward now. All things involving federation are essentially optional on the official app.

    • An EXTREMELY Simple Guide to Mastodon (for when someone says it's too complicated to catch on)

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  • Yes my thoughts exactly. When email was too confusing ISPs included it pre-configured as a perk initially and Gmail came later.

    My feelings in regards to social media are stop the bleeding first, remove society's dependence on X, Meta, and other for-profit platforms. Then we can worry about educating "normal" people on Federation, ActivityPub, etc.

    • An EXTREMELY Simple Guide to Mastodon (for when someone says it's too complicated to catch on)

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  • If it's still too complicated for someone after reading this I think it's safe to say they're a lost cause

    • An EXTREMELY Simple Guide to Mastodon (for when someone says it's too complicated to catch on)

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  • You didn't read it did you😉

    • An EXTREMELY Simple Guide to Mastodon (for when someone says it's too complicated to catch on)

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  • Yep. "Slowly, then all at once".

    Personally, I think once the journalists and news orgs (finally) get on board, that will inspire government agencies to make the change, and that will be the true tipping point away from 𝕏.