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2024-08-13 20:50:28

The Nexus of Privacy via Fediverse Report

thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange

5 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people

https://privacy.thenexus.today/start-making-the-fediverse-less-toxic/

Listen more to more Black people – and amplify their voices
Post less – and think before you post
Call in, call out, and/or report anti-Blackness when you see it
Support Black people and Black-led instances and projects
Approach it intersectionally

The article also has links to anti-racism resources and appendices with a list of common mistkes to avoid and blocklist resources for moderators.

Thanks to everybody who gave feedback on earlier drafts!

Read on for some excerpts (1/N)

#fediverse #mastodon #antiracism

show all 16 comments

2024-08-13 20:52:11

The Nexus of Privacy

thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange

Anti-Blackness – beliefs, attitudes, actions, practices, and behaviors of individuals, institutions, software, and systems that devalue, minimize, and marginalize the full participation of Black people across the world – is a long-term problem in the fediverse. Dr. Johanthan Flowers The Whiteness of Mastodon and Twitter vs. Mastodon podcast, Ra’il I'Nasah Kiam and Marcia X's Blackness in the Fediverse, the links in Dogpiling, weaponized content warning discourse, and a fig leaf for mundane white supremacy, and the draft of the draft of Ah, Lemmy: Racism and Denial in the Threadiverse have some of the history].

Every time things flare up, along with the harassment and denial and victim blaming and hate, there's also lot of hand-wringing about how we should be better than this. And then things go back to how they always are. White people in the fediverse collectively should indeed be better than this ... but in practice, we are not.

Now's a good time to start changing that and start making the fediverse less toxic to Black people. (2/N)

2024-08-14 02:13:37

Gil 💜7️⃣🟣

gil@hol.ogra.ph

@thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange oh wow, nice to see this come out! thanks for putting this together and using feedback from the beehaw folks (among others)

2024-08-14 05:22:08

frykitty likes Halloween

frykitty@craftgoblin.club

@thenexusofprivacy
6. Request change that all replies match the privacy setting of the original poster, so an abuser can't make a reply that only the original poster can see.

2024-08-14 18:10:00

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

2024-08-14 18:10:31

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@The Nexus of Privacy

About point 1

First of all, I'm very selective about whose posts I allow in my stream (= Hubzilla lingo for timeline). See, this is not my personal, general-purpose Fediverse outlet. This Hubzilla channel specialises in two topics. The primary topic is OpenSimulator in particular and sometimes 3-D virtual worlds more generally. The secondary topic is the Fediverse beyond Mastodon.

Real life has no room on this channel. Politics have no room on this channel. Real-life social issues have no room on this channel. Not in my posts, not in anyone else's posts either.

And truth be told, of my over 500 contacts, some 85% have no permission to send me posts. I don't want my stream to be cluttered with 99% uninteresting cruft.

Unlike Mastodon, Hubzilla counts and lists all unread messages, and you can open them, thread by thread. I don't want to sit down behind my computer and wade through tons of completely uninteresting posts and comments before I get to the first interesting one, and then wade through tons more of completely uninteresting posts and comments before I get to the next interesting one. That's why I've denied them the permission to send me their posts.

Almost all of them are white cis-het males, by the way.

As for the other 15%, if their off-topic posts get out of hand, I put word filters into action. Hubzilla has optional individual word filters per contact. Same if they boost too much.

Sure, I could connect to a lot more Black users. But that'd be dishonest. Unless they post about OpenSim or about the Fediverse beyond Mastodon, all they've got to say is cruft that'll clutter my stream. So to keep my stream from being cluttered, I'd have to deny them the permission to send me any posts.

Even if they did post about OpenSim or about the Fediverse beyond Mastodon, I might use per-contact filters to filter out as many off-topic posts as possible. And I'd very likely also filter out all their boosts, like I filter out the boosts from some of the remaining 15%.

(2/7)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Hubzilla #OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #Filters #Racist #Racism

2024-08-14 18:11:19

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@The Nexus of Privacy

About point 2

I don't use the Fediverse for microblogging anyway. I never came from Twitter to Mastodon. I've never been on Twitter, and this identity of mine has never been on Mastodon or anything else geared towards microblogging first and foremost. I've tried Mastodon, but after many years on Friendica and Hubzilla. And this series of comments took me four or five hours to write and largely re-write, and I touch-type on a full-size hardware keyboard. That's nothing in comparison with how long it takes me to describe an image, but still.

Thus, I don't post that much anyway. And I only repeat (= boost) what I really want my own contacts to see.

On top of that, again, I don't post about real life. This channel is not about real life.

Even then, I know the Fediverse is a minefield. At the very least, I'm treading on eggs almost whenever I post something or comment on something.

I can't possibly know all instances of me being racist or sexist or misogynist or homophobic or transphobic or even only ableist. And believe me, I know that it's impossible for me to describe my own images in a way that isn't ableist to someone. The only way I don't have to throw some group of disabled Fediverse users in front of the bus when describing my images is by not posting the images in the first place and then not mentioning that I could have posted an image.

In fact, chances are that the portraits of my little in-world sister @Juno Rowland I want to post on my specialist OpenSim image channel @Jupiter Rowland's (streams) outlet are disturbingly sexist, maybe enough so to either call for the "moderation" on the (streams) instance to take action or, if that fails, have the whole instance Fediblocked. Every single last one of them with no exception. Or if not all of them, then at least some of the outfits she wears. How am I supposed to know beforehand?

Or maybe I'm racist already for only having white avatars. Never mind that having a Black avatar as a white user is every bit as bad as Blackfacing, and never mind the OpenSim doesn't even provide the means to build convincing Black avatars in the first place.

Considering all this, it doesn't even matter that I've delegated posting portraits, memes and the like to two separate (streams) channels rather than doing it on Hubzilla because (streams) can make Mastodon blank sensitive images out, and Hubzilla can't. It doesn't matter that I've done so to be more inclusive towards people who are easily triggered by certain visual content such as eye contact.

(That's me trying to be intersectional here. You've written yourself this is not only about Black people.)

(3/7)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Twitter #Mastodon #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #Avatar #Avatars #Blackfacing #Homophobic #Homophobia #Transphobic #Transphobia #Ableist #Ableism #Sexist #Sexism #Misogynist #Misogyny #Racist #Racism

2024-08-14 18:12:09

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@The Nexus of Privacy

About point 3

To skip right to the end of this point: You wrote...

Still, technology can make a difference; see Mastodon and today’s fediverse are unsafe by design and unsafe by default and Steps towards a safer fediverse for more.

I can't do anything here.

That is, I could. However, it would involve the Fediverse outside of Mastodon. Places which, thanks to their technological features, are magnitudes safer and more private than Mastodon. And that wouldn't be helping. Instead, it'd be bad in many ways.

First of all, as you've written yourself, suggesting people move someplace else is racist. And no, it doesn't matter if they move from Mastodon to Mastodon or from Mastodon to (streams) or even only Hubzilla. The only acceptable solution would be for racism and sexism and misogyny and homophobia and transphobia and ableism etc. etc. pp. to fully disappear from any and all Mastodon timelines. Immediately. With not the faintest trace left behind.

Second, I know that oppressed minorities, Black people first and foremost, cling to Mastodon for their dear lives because, as bad as Mastodon turned out to be, they either don't know that the Fediverse is more than just Mastodon. Or if they do know, they consider everything else in the Fediverse to be even worse. Because it isn't Mastodon. Because they don't really know it, and they don't want to find out the hard way by trying.

Third, I couldn't tell anyone about anything that isn't Mastodon without being a mansplaining reply-guy anyway. I'm dead-serious, I can't.

And fourth, who gives anything upon what a privileged white cis-het male writes who isn't even on Mastodon himself?

(4/7)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #Streams #(streams) #Mansplaining #ReplyGuy #ReplyGuys #Sexist #Sexism #Misogynist #Misogyny #Homophobic #Homophobia #Transphobic #Transphobia #Ableist #Ableism #Racist #Racism

2024-08-14 18:12:36

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@The Nexus of Privacy

About point 4

No can do, at least not support for Black instances. That's because all Black instances are Mastodon instances.

I do not support Mastodon. I hate Mastodon with a burning passion, and I hate the wide-spread notion that Mastodon is absolutely the bee's knees even more. My support for Mastodon is limited to filing bugs on its GitHub repository when it misbehaves in interaction with Hubzilla or (streams).

I will so much not support anyone's stay on this utter piece of crud.

Don't get me wrong. The reason why I won't support them is not because they're Black. It's because they're Mastodon.

And besides, you've written yourself that a Black instance is a ghetto. The kind of ghetto that Black people don't want anyone to tell them to move to. Even if they've chosen themselves to have their Fediverse homes there, it's a ghetto all right.

This is also one of the reasons I will no longer suggest (streams) to the Black community, regardless of whether it might actually be a solution for parts of their imminent problems. I'm not going to tell anyone where to move. Even an unsolicited suggestion, even as little as mentioning the existence of a potential Mastodon alternative and its advantages over Mastodon is passive-aggressive.

Even if someone wished "the Fediverse", read, Mastodon to have a certain feature that'd greatly improve safety and privacy, and Hubzilla and (streams) had this feature readily available right now (and this has happened in this very thread), I would no longer mention them unless maybe in a purely white cis-het discussion. Mentioning them to Black people would be like trying to nudge them into a ghetto. And supporting ghettos in any way or other is racist.

Seeing as how much damage any attempt by a non-Mastodon user at helping can deal, it's safer for all involved to not do anything and let people continue believing the Fediverse is only Mastodon.

(5/7)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Safety #FediSafety #FediverseSafety #Privacy #FediPrivacy #FediversePrivacy #BlackFedi #BlackFediverse #Racist #Racism

2024-08-14 18:13:22

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@The Nexus of Privacy

About point 5

See three comments above. I'm already trying. But I'm pretty sure I'm not nearly trying hard enough.

I can't call out behaviour that I don't see. And I don't see any racist, sexist, misogynist, ableist, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic etc. behaviour in my stream, simply because I've semi-muted some 85% of my contacts to keep as much off-topic cruft away from my stream as possible.

All I can do is adapt my own way of posting and minimise the damage I'm potentially dealing. But even that's limited. Take image posts, for example. My image descriptions can't possibly not be ableist to someone, even if each one of my images has two descriptions. My pictures of @juno may potentially be sexist to say the least. And I still haven't replaced my profile pictures with images without eye contact to protect neurodiverse users.

My own contacts aren't intersectional enough themselves. I have at least one, maybe two Black women amongst the 15% who are permitted to send me their posts. But even that one trans woman amongst these 15% is white. And I do not follow anyone first who doesn't have anything to say that's interesting within the scope of my channel.

(6/7)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Intersectional #Intersectionality #Ableist #Ableism #Sexist #Sexism #Misogynist #Misogyny #Xenophobic #Xenophobia #Homophobic #Homophobia #Transphobic #Transphobia #Racist #Racism

2024-08-14 18:13:54

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@The Nexus of Privacy

About the rest

The goal should not be to learn from mistakes and improve your behaviour. In doing so, people will inevitably get hurt, offending posters will be blocked, moderation will have to get busy, and if moderation doesn't act because an instance is not Mastodon and doesn't work like Mastodon or whatever, whole instances are in danger of being Fediblocked.

It should rather be to learn from other people's past mistakes as well as all guidelines available and do everything perfectly right from the get-go. It's the quickest thing to stop certain bad things from happening in the Fediverse.

Unfortunately, however, this is impossible. And I know that from personal experience.

And even entirely leaving real life out of my posts like I already do doesn't fix this issue.

(7/7)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #FediblockMeta

2024-08-14 19:01:22

jrm4

jrm4@mastodon.social

@thenexusofprivacy

SIX.

Recognize that Black people are NOT a monolith.

Recognize that the first and/or loudest Black voices you/see here may or do not SPEAK FOR ALL BLACK PEOPLE.

NO ONE is above being questioned.

Recognize the VALUE of conflict; you can't get to real truth without it and be VERY WARY of anyone apparently trying to eliminate it.

#blackmastodon #blackfedi #fediverse #antiracism

2024-08-14 20:22:52

The Nexus of Privacy

thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange

@jupiter_rowland thanks for reading the article, and for the detailed response.

What it really comes down to is whether or not you personally want to contribute to the fedvierse's anti-Blackness It ... or try to do something about it. If you do want to make things better, it sounds like you recognize some of the challenges: your choices of what you want to see in your feed lead to you not following Black people, your dislike for Mastodon is stronger your desire to support Black-led instances, the way you advocate for non-Mastodon alternatives means. you come across as a reply guy so you'll do more harm than good if you do, etc.etc.

Putting the fediverse as a whole aside, if you want Hubzilla and (streams) to be less hostile to Black people, you'll need to find ways around those -- after all, you're one of their most prominent advocates on the fediverse.

As you say, you can adatp your own wy of posting, so that's a good place to start. For example, other people are able to advocate successfully for non-Mastodon alternatives, so you could adapt your style. And Hubzilla and (streams) have hashtags, so you could follow the MutualAid tag and boost (and contribute if you have money). And so on

Also I probably should have said something in the "Think before you post" section about rereading things to see whether you've unintentionally said something that's likely to come across as anti-Black. For example, I never said Black-run instances are a "ghetto", so you misquoting me with a term that's usually seen as disparaging -- and then repeating it multiple times in the same paragraph -- is anti-Black.

Similarly when you say

Second, I know that oppressed minorities, Black people first and foremost, cling to Mastodon for their dear lives because, as bad as Mastodon turned out to be, they either don't know that the Fediverse is more than just Mastodon. Or if they do know, they consider everything else in the Fediverse to be even worse. Because it isn't Mastodon. Because they don't really know it, and they don't want to find out the hard way by trying.

it's inaccurate, condescending, and anti-Black.

And I disagree with this:

The goal should not be to learn from mistakes and improve your behaviour.

Sure, it's better not to make mistakes -- and learning from others' mistakes is better. But when you do make mistakes, it's important to learn (as well as apologize). If, that is, you actually want to make the fedierse as a whole -- and Hubzilla and (streams) in particular -- less hostile to Black people.

2024-08-14 22:32:59

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@The Nexus of Privacy

the way you advocate for non-Mastodon alternatives means. you come across as a reply guy so you'll do more harm than good if you do

This is an issue of technological and therefore cultural differences between Mastodon on the one side and Hubzilla on the other.

If I wanted to change that one-sidedly, I'd massively reduce the choice of people whom I can reply to. I'd have to sit and wait until someone who either mentions me out of the blue or who is mutually connected to me acts like the Fediverse is only Mastodon. I'm pretty sure that those who follow me know that the Fediverse is much more than Mastodon. Many of them have started following me to learn such things from me. And those who know me well enough to mention me know that the Fediverse is more than Mastodon, too.

Putting the fediverse as a whole aside, if you want Hubzilla and (streams) to be less hostile to Black people, you'll need to find ways around those -- after all, you're one of their most prominent advocates on the fediverse.

As I've said, for example, sit and wait until someone explicitly wants me to interact with them.

Or hope that my own posts that mention Hubzilla or (streams) happen to be discovered by the right people, regardless of how many Mastodon users have already muted or blocked me.

Increase the possibility of that happening by chopping them into little chunks of no more than 500 characters to make it easier on the eye for Mastodon users, regardless of how many Friendica or even other Hubzilla users will mute or block me if I do that. Even though I'm closer to Friendica and Hubzilla users than I am to Mastodon users.

And Hubzilla and (streams) have hashtags, so you could follow the MutualAid tag and boost (and contribute if you have money).

Hubzilla has hashtags, but it doesn't support following them like Mastodon does. Not unless I subscribe to e.g. mastodon.social's RSS feed generated by the search for a certain hashtag.

But I won't even do that because #MutualAid on mastodon.social alone generates much more posts than all my unmuted contacts combined, all of which, sorry to say, are cruft on my topic-specialised channel. It's bad enough already now when I sit down at my machine in the morning and find "99+" new unread activities, and I have to go through all of them. I can't even tell right off the bat across how many threads these activities are spread. One new post by Eugen Rochko or George Takei boosted to me can drop the unread count because the 167 comments that came afterwards are marked unread along with the post itself. But I could just as well have 40 or 50 new posts with rather few comments to go through.

And that hashtag would flood my stream and my unread activities count with hundreds of single posts over night. And I'd have to load and read them all, one by one. I mean, I can also filter the list of unread activites by name, have only those from the hashtag feed listed and mark them all unread in one fell swoop. But them I wouldn't have to go through the hassle of finding the RSS feed and subscribing to it if I don't read any of it, now, would I?

(streams) can follow hashtags. But my two (streams) channels are even more specialised in topic. It's enough already to receive the same posts and comments from OpenSim contacts twice, once on Hubzilla, once on (streams), because I don't semi-mute my (streams) contacts for a reason that even I don't know. In fact, neither channel exists to follow anyone. I've created both to put content out for which Hubzilla is unfit.

For example, I never said Black-run instances are a "ghetto", so you misquoting me with a term that's usually seen as disparaging -- and then repeating it multiple times in the same paragraph -- is anti-Black.

What I meant are instances specialising in a Black audience, not instances with Black admins and a general audience as mixed as that on mastodon.social.

Similarly when you say
Second, I know that oppressed minorities, Black people first and foremost, cling to Mastodon for their dear lives because, as bad as Mastodon turned out to be, they either don't know that the Fediverse is more than just Mastodon. Or if they do know, they consider everything else in the Fediverse to be even worse. Because it isn't Mastodon. Because they don't really know it, and they don't want to find out the hard way by trying.

it's inaccurate, condescending, and anti-Black.

I've literally read this exact notion from Black users. It's a while ago, and I didn't know that I'd ever have to prove it, so I didn't save that comment anywhere. But it actually really happened.

I suggested trying something else than Mastodon that's safer. The reply I received was that, no, anything that isn't Mastodon is not safe, regardless of what it may be. This notion was backed by, for example, Nazi instances on Pleroma which make the entirety of Pleroma unsafe all over. And everything else that isn't Mastodon is not trustworthy either, partly because these Mastodon users couldn't count on it having moderation on the same level which they were used to from larger Mastodon instances.

They weren't even willing to give anything that isn't Mastodon a try because they were too afraid and too certain to land straight in some racist cesspool with either zero or too little or biased moderation. As for Hubzilla or (streams), they wouldn't have been able to judge them anyway without joining them because the public instances of neither of the two have public streams, so visitors can't see what's going on on that instance. I mean, it's hard to blame them for this decision.

If, that is, you actually want to make the fedierse as a whole -- and Hubzilla and (streams) in particular -- less hostile to Black people.

If I can do that. If that's even possible.

What it really takes is a few Black Fediverse users who aren't afraid of trying something a) of which they can't see how safe it is, b) which so far has a purely white audience (only a few dozen people, about half of whom seem to have their own instances) and c) which handles a great deal differently from Mastodon. But I'd say that the (streams) community in general would be eager to help with that huge step, also seeing as how much advertisement the success of such an endeavour would bring with itself. And due to the high density of instance owners, there's a lot of experience with instance administration as well.

Let the dust of (streams)' "nomadic ActivityPub" redesign settle, let one or a few members of marginalised minorities with enough reach try it out and find it to their liking and tell everyone about it, and it could kick off a little snowball effect. Especially if people discover that PWAs and Web interfaces on mobile aren't that bad if they adapt to mobile well.

After all, @Elena Rossini ✏️✨? has just tried Friendica to be able to write about it, and she was blown away to such degrees that she decided to move over permanently. And her blog post about it is expected to have the power to draw a lot more people into Friendica. It certainly can happen.

Speaking of which, I plan to write a "test drive" article about (streams) from a user's point of view and compare it to Hubzilla. I'll write it in a way that Mastodon users who are the huge majority of my contacts can profit from it, too.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #BlackFedi #BlackFediverse

2024-08-14 23:19:48

The Nexus of Privacy

thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange

@jupiter_rowland OK, well, it really doesn't seem like my suggestions are helpful to you. So, thanks for the detailed response, but I really don't see the point in either of us putting more time and energy into this conversation.

2024-08-16 19:50:18

black vin

vincentblack@mas.to

@thenexusofprivacy
Post less? You mean like post less about black culture or post less in general?

2024-08-19 09:01:26

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@black vin Post less in general.

Anything you could possibly post might come over as racist if you aren't careful. And I'm serious.

#Racist #Racism