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Mastodon hit 10M users

mastodon.social

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Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#301

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

konart wrote: post #264
6ak74rfy wrote: post #62

If you are considering self-hosting your instance, I’ll recommend Go To Social. It is still alpha quality software but all the basic functions work fine. But it’s a much lighter alternative to Mastodon.

From their blog ( https://gts.superseriousbusiness.org/@gotosocial/statuses/01... ): >We do not work with transphobes/fascists/racists. If you open an issue or PR on our git repo and we see you are one of those things, or hang out with people like that, we will kick you out of our space. We have no patience for bigotry, and we see no reason whatsoever to tolerate having it anywhere near us. Fuck terfs and fuck nazis.…

Imma be honest with you it has never occurred to me that I would legitimately be considered a transphobe, racist, fascist, or nazi. And if someone sincerely was informing me I was doing this to the point where they could no longer tolerate my presence I would take some serious time to introspect what I did and potentially reach out to a neutral third party like a therapist to figure out if I have to do some work on myself.

Basically I wouldn’t worry about a stance like that, because either it will never apply to me or if it does, I can take it as a fairly low-stakes learning opportunity! (It’s not like I’m losing my job, getting divorced, etc. from this!)

(I would consider it a similar hardline stance to, idk, “we do not work with human traffickers, if we think you’re pro human trafficking we’ll avoid you” or “we do not work with serial killers, if we think you’re pro serial killer we’ll avoid you”. Like I know I’m neither of those things, and if people think I am, holy shit!! I need to fix that asap!!)

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#302

Post by nemo44x »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #198
wolverine876 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What forum are you talking about. All of Mastadon? Doesn't each instance have its own rules? > As someone who'd consider themselves progressive by the yardstick of 10 years ago but not measured to the new progressives of today ... > The New Left has become unrecognizable to me That's an expected phenomenon. What was progressive yesterday becomes conservative today - think of women's rights, interracial marriage, etc.…

I think what OP is describing is the modern let's turn away from liberalism and in some cases embracing race essentialism

It's too bad that the word "liberal" got intertwined with "left politics" since mainstream Democrats and Republicans are both "Liberals", or at least subscribe to the "liberal intellectual system". It's about how knowledge is created and validated through public criticism and checks. No one and no ideal is above this system. It's about skepticism in that NO ONE get the the final say on anything and NO ONE has personal authority. A claim to knowledge can only be made if it is falsifiable and can be debunked.

This is where modern Progressives (or wokes) diverge from Liberalism. It is a politics of radical egalitarianism and fundamentalism. The idea that certain people have access to certain knowledge and "other ways of knowing" that makes them the authority on a subject and them and only them should be listened to. And of course, using unfalsifiable methods to achieve this as evidenced in their most popular literature that states "All white people are racist and denial of this is evidence of their fragility, which is racist". This language trick is used over and over. And of course, creating a grievance hierarchy that intends to flip Liberalism on its head since clearly the Liberal intellectual tradition was created by and for white men to maintain their power over everyone else. Of course ignoring that all of the so-called "progress" we've made (women's right, gay rights, civil rights, etc) are from the Liberal tradition.

Some people are bigots. But many people that are labeled bigots are simply skeptical liberals, which are often called fascists now.

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#303

Post by [deleted] »

krapp wrote: post #214
realjhol wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to leave an instance because the maintainer said pro-life views were forbidden. Didn't matter whether you expressed them or not - the owner had a policy against private opinions. I agree with your point about freedom of association, but let's not pretend this is just limited to racism. And if you support the concept of free association, what do you do when it collides with civil rights law?

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#304

Post by TRiG_Ireland »

I'm on Mastodon, but I find the experience extremely frustrating. The UI has all the annoyances of Twitter's (which I also dislike), and more besides. It's a fun enough place to mess around and post throwaway jokes, but using it for anything serious would be a mistake: federation means that often only some of the posts in a given thread make it to your server, so often bits of a conversation are silently missing. This can lead to all kinds of miscommunication, misunderstanding, unintentional offence, and talking at cross purposes. It is, to my mind, a massive design flaw.

(The fact that most servers have a fairly low character limit for posts, but allow chaining posts together to make threads is another problem, inherited from Twitter. It's harder to write; it's harder to read. It's harder to read even if all the posts in a chain federate to your server, which they may not. Individual posts in the middle of a chain may surface on the timeline out of context and make no sense. The entire structure is ridiculous, irritating, and pointlessly difficult to use.)

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#305

Post by enaaem »

brabel wrote: post #173
devjab wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So long as you lean to progressive worldviews and see insult slinging at those that don't see your way not as being toxic, but rather just expressions of righteous indignation. I'm not sure which mastodon server you are on, or which ones you're linked with, but I'm on Universeodon and I've frankly seen nothing of the sort. You do have a point of course, but I haven't seen any sort of toxic behaviour. Toxic and hate…

> Toxic and hateful people simply get banned I don't know if that's supposed to sound like a good thing, but to me this sounds like a distopian place where anyone that does not align with the "correct worldview" is made to disappear and never be heard of again. If you think "only bad people are toxic", you probably haven't been to many debates where your viewpoint happens to be the minority viewpoint.

That was pretty much the world before mass social media. Most forums were human moderated and you can be banned for just being a jerk. Moderators are most of the time pretty good at interpreting nuance, tone and intention.

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#306

Post by BorgHunter »

emptysongglass wrote: post #115
wolverine876 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What forum are you talking about. All of Mastadon? Doesn't each instance have its own rules? > As someone who'd consider themselves progressive by the yardstick of 10 years ago but not measured to the new progressives of today ... > The New Left has become unrecognizable to me That's an expected phenomenon. What was progressive yesterday becomes conservative today - think of women's rights, interracial marriage, etc.…

> What forum are you talking about. All of Mastadon? Doesn't each instance have its own rules? It's one of the larger instances but the top heaviest constitute the majority by far and they all enshrine these policies. I don't think you're really answering my criticism. You're lumping my "retrograde" progressiveness in with the well-worn wheel of timely revolts against the corruption of the past. I'm saying that both…

But what is "The Left"? People arguing about politics on Mastodon? "Instrument(s) of control in the service of the few," seriously? What control do such people even have, outside of a Mastodon instance that people can just...not use? It's such grandiose language for such a petty complaint.

If you want to talk about instruments of control in the service of the few, how about we talk about the forces that keep healthcare expensive and poorly distributed in the U.S.? Or are working to ban books and art performances in Florida (and elsewhere)? How about the instruments of control that have been invading Ukraine for over a year? These seem much more tangible and consequential than moderation decisions on a website no one has to use. Perspective is very important, lest we fall into the false equivalency trap.

The instruments of control are distributed in a very lopsided manner, to my eyes. "The Left is CONTROLLING PEOPLE on Mastodon" doesn't really cut it. If you don't the policies of one instance, join a different one. Or make your own, and you can make your own policies. You can decide what level of control you want on the social media you choose to interact with. And if some instances have rules you don't like? My advice would be, ignore those instances and don't worry about their rules. They only affect you if you allow them to.

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#307

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

Spivak wrote: post #299
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It did not use too, but it is hard for me to tell where/when the shift happened. All I know for sure is that anyone with mildly stronger views on 1st amendment are called speech absolutists. It is extra annoying, because 'hate speech' is mostly recently made up term to stifle free speech AND, more importantly, does not exist anywhere in US constitution. You can, but it becomes a game of using language that it is hard…

> because 'hate speech' is mostly recently made up term to stifle free speech AND, more importantly, does not exist anywhere in US constitution Which is why dirty commie liberals like me want to get a national hate speech law passed just like other countries have. Canada (which passed in the 1989) Ireland (passed in 1989) New Zeland (passed in 1993) Germany, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, UK, Iceland, Denmark…

I moved from the old country partly cuz of Lèse-majesté laws regarding ruling elite and clergy. Forgive me, but other countries having X type laws does not automatically constitute a valid argument to enact anything similar here. I now personally see it as an indirect way to circumvent original framework of this country having failed to do it directly.

In short, I am going to use a very, very old argument. If everyone jumped off of a bridge, would you do it too?

Fascinating statement and I would love you to elaborate further, because to me it is contradictory.

Freedom of speech is called freedom of speech for a reason. It is not called freedom with asterisk to account for other person's perception of your communication. That is not freedom. It is the opposite of freedom. Frankly, what you are proposing inevitably results in an echo chamber. It is cool if that if it is what you want. It is not what I want.

You seem reasonable. I am willing to engage. Convince me 'free speech' is more free when it is restricted.

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#308

Post by konart »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #301
konart wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From their blog ( https://gts.superseriousbusiness.org/@gotosocial/statuses/01... ): >We do not work with transphobes/fascists/racists. If you open an issue or PR on our git repo and we see you are one of those things, or hang out with people like that, we will kick you out of our space. We have no patience for bigotry, and we see no reason whatsoever to tolerate having it anywhere near us. Fuck terfs and fuck nazis.…

Imma be honest with you it has never occurred to me that I would legitimately be considered a transphobe, racist, fascist, or nazi. And if someone sincerely was informing me I was doing this to the point where they could no longer tolerate my presence I would take some serious time to introspect what I did and potentially reach out to a neutral third party like a therapist to figure out if I have to do some work on m…

> And if someone sincerely was informing me I was doing this to the point where they could no longer tolerate my presence

But thtat's the thing. On fediverse nobody informs you (unless you have an argument with someone). Your instances just gets banned, possibly by multiple instances\relays and that's it.

Not to mention that they are putting everything into one basket: transphobe, racist, fascist even capitalists are bad. Everyone is bad are you are also bad if you have any connection to those.

>(It’s not like I’m losing my job, getting divorced, etc. from this!)

Yes, you just lose connection to a people you were previously following. Even if they are okay with whatever your stance is.

> Like I know I’m neither of those things, and if people think I am, holy shit!! I need to fix that asap!

No, you should not. Otherwise you will spend your whole life fixing problems that do not exist.

Some idiots who can't even take their time and learn what does the word "fascism" is are telling you you are a fascist while you are not? Fuck them. They need some help, not you. (Unless of course you are staring to hear the same thing from different people including those who actually know you. In that case you probably should question some things)

Re: Mastodon hit 10M users

#309

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

sillyfluke wrote: post #163
wolverine876 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What forum are you talking about. All of Mastadon? Doesn't each instance have its own rules? > As someone who'd consider themselves progressive by the yardstick of 10 years ago but not measured to the new progressives of today ... > The New Left has become unrecognizable to me That's an expected phenomenon. What was progressive yesterday becomes conservative today - think of women's rights, interracial marriage, etc.…

>That's an expected phenomenon. What was progressive yesterday becomes conservative today - think of women's rights, interracial marriage, etc. The same goes for 'who' was progressive. I think it would have been worth it to give this more than a moments thought. A quick glance at 20th century events shows fascism and communist dictatorships being seen as more fashionable and modern than flaky Weimar republics and cru…

Fascism is explicitly and deliberately regressive. Its incarnations have all focused on building up the image and importance of both traditional values and a legendary heritage (often Rome or a Roman offshoot) which people are supposed to aspire to returning to and continue into the future.
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