If you're a white person on the Fediverse and you've never seen someone called a slur, or threats made against them--congratulations!
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@dave @skinnylatte that explains a lot
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@dave
I appreciate the explanation of the problem. It's quite enlightening. Is there anything actionable I can do as non-moderator that happens to be on the Fediverse? Presumably raising awareness helps, but is there anything else I should be doing?@chocobo13 You can explain it to those who still thinks it's not happening.
Harassers also sometimes target hashtags or groups, so you could watch those (e.g. #MutualAid or #BlackMastodon and definitely #FediBlock) and help by reporting anything you might see there.
Also, read https://infosec.exchange/@thenexusofprivacy/112956213079993182
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@dave Would it be possible to add a way to ban "followers only replies"? As a toggle in user preferences, or something, anyone know?
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@dave Would it be possible to add a way to ban "followers only replies"? As a toggle in user preferences, or something, anyone know?
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@dave Among the other reply controls, I want an option where I can set it so nobody can reply to me with "followers-only" post privacy. That would cut off this vector entirely, and help with a lot of other bad UX.
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@shlee @dave @StingrayBadger
That would make a lot of sense, don't know who's in a position to work towards making it happen. -
@dave Is there a shit mastodon says account yet? Maybe people could anonymously shame the harassers by messaging screenshots and posting them that way.
@semitones @dave the harassers know where the Screenshots come from. They were part of the "interaction".
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@dave bonus points when the victim is blocked and not able to report report said harrassment…
- They can even prevent admins from seeing the posts in question
- This is a serious issue that #Mastodon #developers refuse to address, alongside the unwillingness to address basic features that every other internet-facing application has, like blocklist feed support…
- They can even prevent admins from seeing the posts in question
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@dave I don't know if this would be feasible, but I really really think that "followers only" should not mean "the followers of the account posting" but "the followers of the account posting and those of all accounts named in the post".
Even leaving aside the serious issue of harassment, it would make totally friendly and civil threads that hang off a followers-only top post, into a conversation one's followers could take part in without also following everyone who comments.
@dragonfrog @dave
How about "followers of the author of the original post that started the thread"? "Followers of anyone mentioned" is going to take a lot of queries to different servers to get the list of followers - and some instances may not even make the list available for privacy reasons. Followers of the OP could be done by having such replies go through the OPs instance.Having followers only replies gobthrough the OPs instance would be more eork for the developers, but the current solution is useless for replies, because two people with distinct sets of followers having a followers only discussion are going to sound like listening to one half of a phone conversation.
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@dalias@hachyderm.io @dave@alvarado.social
Thanks for the education! So it does sound like that might be a solution...@MxAlba @dalias @dave The #Mastodon #Developers are just evidently unwilling to address these issues…
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@dave@alvarado.social
But Dave, couldn't Mastodon just not allow you to reply followers only to a public post?
Dave: "Sure it could, but the harassers would simply run a system on their instance that doesn't have that restriction. The Fediverse is more than just Mastodon. And Mastodon is open source so they could also still use Mastodon but remove that restriction." -
@JessTheUnstill @Crissa @dave I do it for call-ins. There are a lot of marginalized people in my circles, but we all make mistakes and every once in a while let slip an unexamined bias. So when one of my peers says something harmful, I'm likely to call them on it in a followers only post, because I don't want to leave it unaddressed but also really don't want to cause a dogpile. So it's a tool that's used both for preventing harassment and for harassment
I'm not sure how to resolve that@raphaelmorgan @JessTheUnstill@infosec.exchange @Crissa @dave so, just a dogpile from your followers, then?
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@fishidwardrobe @dave
Me too, i don't get it either, perhaps someone can explain?
Found quite a good article on allied problems and possible solutions
https://privacy.thenexus.today/social-threat-modeling-and-quote-boosts/ -
@Crissa @dave I limit reply visibility to followers only or mentioned only a lot when it's something that I don't want to show up on random stranger's timelines. Sometimes it's to reduce the amount of replyguys. Sometimes it's sorta personal stuff (not to the level of "move to Signal" but still not the sort of thing everyone needs to read)
@JessTheUnstill @dave
But why should this limit who the thread source can show it to? Why should you have control over showing it to (from their perspective) randos, and not the person who's being replied to?Being able to hide it from *their* followers - what legitimate purpose does that serve?
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@fishidwardrobe @dave
Me too, i don't get it either, perhaps someone can explain?
Found quite a good article on allied problems and possible solutions
https://privacy.thenexus.today/social-threat-modeling-and-quote-boosts/ -
@dave it never occured to me that the "followers only" setting could be used that way. Wouldn't it make more sense if the replies automatically followed the same restrictions as the original message ? You've chosen to reply to a public message, you follow the rule set by the author of the message.
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This is unfortunately something that I have seen, certainly on Black Mastodon along with Trans Mastodon.
Often black Fediversians will be on the receiving end of racism and will rightly call out white Fediversians for not pushing back against it. Unfortunately we typically cannot do that as we simply cannot see the bigots and their bigotry, often because of either the way they are posting and/or the admins of the instances we are in defedding from problematic instances and blocking bigots.
It does seem to be less of an issue on trans and LGBTQ Fedi and Mastodon, probably due to so many of us being on instances explicitly run by and for LGBTQ folx.
Unfortunately, that is not an option for everyone, and I have wracked my brains as to how we can stop all racism and other bigotry.
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@dave That sounds like a defect of the "followers only" mechanism… Maybe we should modify its behavior to not reply to non-followers? That way, only mutuals can join in the harassment (instead of all followers of the original instigator), and an unfollow shuts things down, too.
