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User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
311–320 of 410 posts
Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
> he's one of journalism's answers to the concept of edgelordery either the term "edgelord" means something very different from what it did 10ish years ago or you have a very misinformed understanding about how timid Jesse approaches online conflict. I haven't seen him initiate any form of edgy engagement in forever .. maybe ever.
I followed him long after he was declared persona non grata, sort of uncomfortably agreeing that he was getting dogpiled unfairly (I don't think I agree with him about much, but at the time, it didn't seem like he was saying anything more than a stddev from the media consensus). I don't follow him anymore, after it became very clear that he's steering right into personal conflicts with people, and reciprocating all t…
> Singal is a lot less interesting a subject (aren't we all exhausted of debating Singal at this point) than whether Bluesky is going to be a viable mainstream competitor to Twitter
I 100% agree with you on that part. As for the rest, it seems you and I have a vastly different experience with him and his views. Cheers!
edit: oh yea, I don't know whether you'd be comfortable sharing it here but I'd be fairly curious about that Jesse 101 you wrote for your facebook group. Not to criticize it or anything just to get a better idea of your POV.
Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
Couldn't it be possible that chemically altering minors isn't be best course of treatment? The UK, Finland, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway have all stopped routine prescription of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria on the grounds that their efficacy is not clear but the negative side effects are. It's extremely hard to claim the science is settled at this point. The allegations of harm seem to come from a…
I welcome any novel, high-quality scientific research on better treatments for gender dysphoric children. But, in the States at least, there is no longer any funding for that. They cut all of it by grepping the NIH and NSF databases for “gender”, more or less. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/nih-terminating-active-researc... What there soon will be in the States, assuming SCOTUS overturns the Colorado ban this term, is…
There has been quality research published recently on treating gender dysphoria. For instance, A 2020 study on treating GD with hormone therapy: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08039488.2019.1...
Somewhat unique among studies on pediatric gender affirming hormone therapy, this study had a control group that wasn't prescribed blockers. The group on blockers fared no better than the control group. This is the study that primarily motivated Finland to stop routine prescription of puberty blockers to children, with half a dozen or so other European countries following suit after their reviews of the evidence.
Researchers in the US have typically balked at the idea of including a control group in their studies on blockers, arguing that it's unethical to withhold live-saving medicine from patients. This, conveniently, lets authors frame null results as positive, by claiming that gender dysphoria patient would have fared even worse without blockers. This is what Johanna Olson-Kennedy did in her latest study: she observed no change in the patients' outcomes, and claimed that this indicates that blockers are beneficial because they prevented the patients from getting even worse. But without a control group in her study, this is statement is just speculation.
The retreat from gender affirming care is motivated by the absence of good evidence in favor of their usage. And it's hardly a US-specific phenomenon. It's uniquely politicized in the US, I'll grant that, but this shift in stance on altering children's endocrine systems is happening in plenty of other countries too, so I'm not so convinced this is solely borne out by this latest President.
And again, I find the attempts to equate anti-gay conversion therapy aimed at suppressing homosexual desire with exploring ways to become more comfortable in one's natural body. It's fundamentally different to[ tell a boy attracted to other boys that his feelings are wrong than it is to tell a boy identifying as a girl on account of his same sex attractions, "boys can like other boys, not only girls can like boys". The former is telling someone to reject a part of themselves, the latter is expanding's one's concept of gender to include one's natural state of being.
Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed, Singal is a journalist you go to when you want to read a thoughtful, data-driven analysis of a controversial issue. He's exceptionally skilled at taking complex and highly polarized topics and picking them apart in a way that invites readers to consider different perspectives. Unfortunately, that in itself is a polarizing approach, as many people just want their pre-existing beliefs reinforced.
Speaking of confirmation bias, do you disagree with Singal about anything in particular? What about agreement? Who else have you read on this 'controversial issue'? Why did you consider them less persuasive than a journalist with no particular expertise? Why have you not named what the 'issue' is? Are 'people' an 'issue' to be solved in general , or just in this case? If we changed topics to 'what should be done abou…
What's with this barrage of questions? Pick one or two if you want a conversation. I'm not interested in an interrogation.
Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#315I don't understand how the removing of right wing users is described as a necessary good to create a safe and inclusive space, while the removal of left wing users is decried as censorship. If you dismiss people who have genuine concerns about things as bigoted, you yourself are being bigoted! It is as though people don't understand the definition of the word.
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So you can frame anyone you disagree with as "intolerant", and then you are free to be intolerant to them.
Also I can be intolerant to you, because you are intolerant (to people you think are intolerant).
This is neither smart nor moral. This is logically inconsistent and breeds conflict almost by definition.
Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#316From the article I got the impression Singal was some far right loon, but after looking it up.. nope, he is a liberal that said something mildly out of sync with trans activists opinions...
I think the article's sole purpose is to pressure Bluesky into enforcing an ideology.
Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#317I much prefer Bluesky to X but have had a hunch this was coming due to everything I've read about the practicality of running a Bluesky protocol service. I still think there's room for something better technically. Mastodon seems more true to the decentralized ethos but I've never quite gotten used to the server dependency experience. Nostr appeals to me technically but every time I'm on it seems swamped completely b…
> Mastodon seems more true to the decentralized ethos I'm not sure that's true. It's important to note that these bans are from the Bluesky App View (one component of the infra), and that these users can continue to post under their identity (if they own it, which they can), and users on App Views that haven't banned these users could continue to follow them. None of that works with Mastodon. An admin bans you from t…
That is true, but due to the smaller size and larger number of instances, it's easier to find a place where you won't get randomly banned without an admin taking the time to talk to you about what's wrong. My instance has about 1K active people on it and I've always been able to have a dialogue with the moderators and sysop. When things have gone wrong I had the opportunity to correct them.
I think there's a great value to the "small community" ethos that the fediverse supports much better than bluesky.
Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is the purpose of calling someone a clanker?
Note this word is actually a one-off joke from Star Wars, but the reason they're saying it is that you can say it with a hard R. The other words are worse.
I don’t believe this is true. The sort of people to use this slur are the ones supporting DEI and BLM.
Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We should not allow parents to deny their children healthcare which leads to their permanent disfiguration. That's disgusting. So instead we need to enable parents to allow healthcare to disfigure their young kids when they predictably get influenced from social media and their peers? How is it 'disgusting' to try to let someone live as they were born?
It's a medical matter. If medical officials broadly agree that having a prosthetic limb gives someone better quality of life than having no limb, then yes, we should disfigure the human body by attaching a prosthetic. Medical officials fairly broadly agree that gender-affirming care improves the quality of life of patients, and so of course it should be allowed. It's disgusting to try and use the law to force medical…
> Medical officials fairly broadly agree that gender-affirming care improves the quality of life of patients, and so of course it should be allowed.
This is not really true any more at this point in history. European countries have either backed away from pediatric gender affirming care, or they never allowed it in the first place. It's increasingly the case that the US and Canada are the outliers in the broader consensus that the evidence for the benefits of endocrine interventions in children is too weak to justify routine prescription.
> I assume you're opposed to cosmetic dental braces for children? Even though just like gender-affirming care, they can lead to better self-perception and better outcomes (but 'disfigure' the child by making their teeth more aligned with stereotypical norms)
Are we really going to try and draw an equivalence between cosmetic dental braces and permanently-altering hormones? A wire pulling a kid's teeth into places is not comparable to chemically castrating the kid for a few years and giving them opposite-sex hormones in their mid-teens. The measured benefits to the latter have to be way higher to justify that level of invasiveness and permanent change.
These kinds of blithe comparisons to the seriousness of gender-affirming care no small part of why trust on this issue has waned so fast.
Re: User ban controversy reveals Bluesky’s decentralized aspiration isn’t reality
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’d argue that people lose the moment they sign up for an account, deluding themselves into believing that the problem with the last nth iteration of the same thing isn’t them. The format is the problem. The medium is the problem. Poorly moderated groups of anonymous people voidscreaming as some “this will be monetized once we hit critical mass” exercise is the problem. I believe that eventually people will sort ours…
100% it doesn't make any sense to expect different behavior out of the same format just because you make slightly different promises about what the rules will be Bluesky has been drama central since the beginning, consisting mostly of people who thought Twitter wasn't censoring enough (or censoring the wrong people), the free speech crowd came later and, well, tested the waters and found transphobic speech was in fac…
While I agree with you, I would hesitate to be throwing stones from the glass house that is Hacker News.
This place also suffers from some pretty severe systemic issues that are inherent to any site that delegates moderation responsibilities to ordinary users. Invariably, these tools get abused to silence people.
The amount of greyed out and dead posts in this very comments section is exhibit A, and it's a pattern I've seen repeated in pretty much all other sites like it.