2025-10-10 02:51:16

damon

damon@social.wedistribute.org

It’s insane that some of you want to puff out your chest and state “ I told you so!” And whatever criticisms when it comes to #bluesky especially with the blocking of a prominent #Blacksky user. Why FYI his account does still exist and he’s able to post, it’s just people using Bluesky specific architecture that is blocked from seeing Link. Rudy breaks things down further https://bsky.app/profile/rude1.blacksky.team/post/3m2n62lo6v22p

Anyways, the #fediverse has its own antiblackness, prejudice and racism problems. Maybe address those before pointing fingers. On Bluesky the issue has mostly been a matter of leadership not as much the users (exceptions being trolls). #mastodon #fedi

2025-10-10 03:22:56

damon

damon@social.wedistribute.org

On fedi there’s leadership as well as a significant amount of the user base actively contributing towards the harm and mistreatment of Black and Brown folks. Denying antiblackness and racism, wanting Black and Brown folks to show proof & educate you. It’s why I laugh when I see people talk about how this space is healthier, it’s not.

2025-10-10 04:08:45

Julian Fietkau

julian@fietkau.social

@damon Hey Damon, partially related reply, but have you had an opportunity to connect with Mastodon's new product designer, @imanijoy? As the Mastodon team digs into ways on the product/software/tech end to improve this environment for Black people, I believe your expertise on what's working and what's lacking could be very valuable to them if you're willing to provide it, especially since your experience with the fediverse both runs deep and goes back a long time.

2025-10-10 04:08:45

damon

damon@social.wedistribute.org

❤️

2025-10-10 09:14:57

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Julian Fietkau @damon If technology was a solution against racism in the Fediverse, we'd now have a huge Black community on Hubzilla or (streams), empowered to defend itself against racism, harassment and dogpiling with technological countermeasures that are light years away from Mastodon and unimaginable from a Mastodon point of view.

Alas, there is none. Not because nobody knows what Hubzilla can do, nobody knows that (streams) exists, and/or there is no native mobile app for either. But because the BIPoC in the Fediverse want racism in the Fediverse to disappear entirely.

They don't want new weapons to fight racism. They don't want strongholds to protect themselves against racism. Neither do they want to retreat into an existing stronghold, nor do they want a stronghold to be built around them. They want racism to simply no longer be there. The only feasible solution. Unrealistic, unfortunately, but without any good alternative.

CC: @damon

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #BIPoC #Racism

2025-10-10 09:41:56

Julian Fietkau

julian@fietkau.social

@jupiter_rowland I share your frustration about racism being a multi-layered problem that cannot be tackled with technical measures alone.

I disagree with your characterization of BIPoC fedi users as having impossible demands. Exactly because racism isn't solved with the flick of a switch, we need to make improvements where we can. Block lists and reply controls in Mastodon won't eliminate racism from the fediverse, but they can make some people's time here somewhat (or a lot) better.

@damon

2025-10-10 10:37:53

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Julian Fietkau

Exactly because racism isn't solved with the flick of a switch, we need to make improvements where we can. Block lists and reply controls in Mastodon won't eliminate racism from the fediverse, but they can make some people's time here somewhat (or a lot) better.

Only if Mastodon devs consult with the rest of the Fediverse instead of surprising everyone with a solution that's incompatible with just about everything else.

See quote-posts and the quote-post opt-in. Mastodon's solution supposes that the whole Fediverse is Mastodon or at least works like Mastodon.

Users on Mastodon 4.5 or newer can set any of their posts to un-quote-post-able. But still, anyone on Pleroma, Akkoma, Misskey, Calckey, Firefish, CherryPick, Sharkey, Iceshrimp, Catodon, Mitra, Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams), Forte etc. can quote-post these self-same un-quote-post-able posts with zero resistance.

At the same time, users on Mastodon 4.5 or newer cannot quote-post anything that doesn't come from Mastodon because Mastodon expects there to be its own proprietary, non-standard quote-post opt-in.

It's easy from a Mastodon point of view to consider Mastodon the one and only gold standard in the Fediverse and point fingers at the non-Mastodon Fediverse. But don't forget that Friendica has had quote-posts for five and a half years longer than Mastodon has even existed and for over 15 years longer than Mastodon has had them.

By the way, while I don't know about Friendica, Hubzilla has reply control. It has had it probably since 2012. It has reply control features that go way beyond what even the Mastodon devs can imagine, much less what's technologically possible on Mastodon. And (streams) and Forte manage to go even further than their ancestor Hubzilla in terms of reply control.

So Mastodon will not introduce reply control to the Fediverse. It can't expect everything else in the Fediverse to adopt its own reply control technology, much less throw out their existing reply control technology in favour of Mastodon's.

There used to be FEP-5624 that was actually proposed by a Mastodon dev. There was a lenghty discussion about this FEP draft that involved devs from all across the Fediverse, even the Hubzilla creator and (streams) and Forte maintainer. However, the FEP draft was probably abandoned in 2023 already and withdrawn two weeks ago.

The lesson learned for Mastodon may be that first introducing a FEP and discussing it in the community and with devs of stuff that's nothing like Mastodon leads nowhere, and the only way to get things done is to first build it into Mastodon, then maybe try to make it into a FEP and then demand the whole rest of the Fediverse adopt it or face being branded as broken by design.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #ReplyControl #ReplyControls #FEP_5624

2025-10-10 12:41:20

damon

damon@social.wedistribute.org

@jupiter_rowland @julian strong ass opinions. Where do you come off stating any of this? I can tell you for a fact none of the Black and Brown folk I know have said this nor expect this. The technology is only a part of the solution, the other primary parts are cultures and UX. Of course people wish there were no racism but no one is moronic enough to believe it won’t exist. Sorry that you actually have to think outside yourself and think outside of the affordances of the software that you like. It’s insane to blame BIPOC instead of the social deviants