Bluesky are openly welcoming, verifying and hosting accounts of prominent far right politicians.
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I've edited my reply
@FediTips And yeah, I don't really consider them part of it myself, which is why I qualified it with "very pedantically".
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p.s. It isn't enough to say that individuals can just block stuff they don't like.
Fascists don't care about people who block them, they only care about those who don't block them.
Fascists use platforms to try to radicalise anyone who will listen. Fascists spread hateful lies about vulnerable minorities, and if someone believes those lies they may follow the fascist and spread lies too.
I've tried to explain this in a way that hopefully anyone can relate to:
@FediTips Evergreen
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p.p.s. No, Vance wasn't banned by Bluesky. That's why I included the link in the original post so you can see he isn't banned.
Bluesky had blocked the account briefly because they thought it was fake, but when they found out it was real they unblocked it, verified it and sent an email to Fox News saying that Vance was welcome on Bluesky.
A major difference with Twitter is the easily available block lists we can subscribe to.
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@FediTips And yeah, I don't really consider them part of it myself, which is why I qualified it with "very pedantically".
Fair enough!
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A major difference with Twitter is the easily available block lists we can subscribe to.
That's not enough, he has to be deplatformed because not everyone will block him:
https://social.growyourown.services/@FediTips/114710257356479091
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@dideldum @FediTips @McWabbit
Get lost with that "tolerate the intolerant". How often do people have to point out the tolerance paradox? How often do people be reminded that right extremists don't care what your intentions are as long as they gain attention and power from it? Western societies atre past the time when we had enough freedom to discuss with those that have "different opinions". We've done that and look how well we dismantled them: they sit in every government.@t_robinart @FediTips @McWabbit Not everyone at Twitter is a Nazi. But those, who are attracted by ultra right ideology, will more likely join Twitter, if Vance or other fascists only post there.
If somebody like Vance now joins Bluesky, young politically disappointed people might join Bluesky, too. And there they are reachable for other opinions and ideas, which have no voice at Twitter.
There is nothing more dangerous then isolated bubbles in social media. -
@FediTips Evergreen
Exactly.
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Bluesky are openly welcoming, verifying and hosting accounts of prominent far right politicians. Trump's VP Vance is now on Bluesky:
https://bsky.app/profile/jd-vance-1.bsky.social
"We welcome the Vice President to the conversation on Bluesky" (Bluesky in their email to Fox News)
More
: Bluesky is centralised, run by a for-profit corporation, its CEO has blockchain background, it is partly owned by VCs & Blockchain Capital.Bluesky are going down exactly the same Nazi Bar path as Twitter.
(via @mastodonmigration)
@FediTips @mastodonmigration
Seriously? -
@t_robinart @FediTips @McWabbit Not everyone at Twitter is a Nazi. But those, who are attracted by ultra right ideology, will more likely join Twitter, if Vance or other fascists only post there.
If somebody like Vance now joins Bluesky, young politically disappointed people might join Bluesky, too. And there they are reachable for other opinions and ideas, which have no voice at Twitter.
There is nothing more dangerous then isolated bubbles in social media.@dideldum @t_robinart @McWabbit
"And there they are reachable for other opinions and ideas, which have no voice at Twitter. "
No, it doesn't work like that.
When you give fascists a broader audience, you simply get more fascists.
All you do is normalise fascism in mainstream discourse, and people who would have previously stayed away from it suddenly think it's okay to do fascist things.
The only effective response to fascism is to make its audience and reach as small as possible.
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@FediTips @mastodonmigration
Seriously?Yup, that's why I included the link so people could see for themselves.
If you do an internet search for "fox news bluesky vance" you'll find the article where Bluesky welcome him to the platform (I'm not going to link it).
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It's vital that we drive fascists out of all mainstream discourse. They are not participating in good faith, they are participating in order to radicalise people to do acts of the worst kind of hatred and violence.
They don't care if individuals block them, because all they care about are those who don't block them. Those who don't block them can be radicalised into spreading hatred themselves, which radicalises even more people.
Fascism is a virus, it thrives on publicity.
@FediTips
I feel obligated to clarify, given that you have misrepresented my words in your reply.I did not, at any point, talk about individuals blocking fascists. I talked about instances banning the individual fascists, rather than cutting off entire instances, as a choice of moderation style. I also agree that defederation is a valid option for instances, perhaps due to moderation burden, or because the remote instance in question is irredeemable.
An instance banning Vance means, on that instance, no user is capable of being radicalised by Vance's account. This is the same as if an open-signup instance banned Vance's account upon registration. This is the same result as defederating the entire remote instance for the sole reason that Vance is on there, except that otherwise innocent users on the remote instance are not caught in the crossfire.
Many of those remote users will not be aware of Vance's presence on their instance (especially when that instance is Bluesky), and therefore cannot be considered Nazis by mere affiliation: they have not interacted with him. Those users remain on that instance, and defederating will do nothing to protect them if he attempts to radicalise them; however, a moderation team can monitor the users of that instance and continually assess the risks and whether defederating later is reasonable to them. What can, in fact, sometimes happen is the opposite: the Nazi gets bullied out of there, or -- as in the Nazi bar analogy -- the users notice the Nazi and leave of their own accord (at which point I'm sure the calculus will shift in favour of defederation); perhaps such users move to fedi in this scenario, having not been ostracised for reasons they would not otherwise have understood.
Finally:
Does your instance currently block mastodon.social? If not, as some instances have out of concerns for its moderation & size, then that is an example of what I was describing which you quoted and responded "No." to. -
@FediTips
I feel obligated to clarify, given that you have misrepresented my words in your reply.I did not, at any point, talk about individuals blocking fascists. I talked about instances banning the individual fascists, rather than cutting off entire instances, as a choice of moderation style. I also agree that defederation is a valid option for instances, perhaps due to moderation burden, or because the remote instance in question is irredeemable.
An instance banning Vance means, on that instance, no user is capable of being radicalised by Vance's account. This is the same as if an open-signup instance banned Vance's account upon registration. This is the same result as defederating the entire remote instance for the sole reason that Vance is on there, except that otherwise innocent users on the remote instance are not caught in the crossfire.
Many of those remote users will not be aware of Vance's presence on their instance (especially when that instance is Bluesky), and therefore cannot be considered Nazis by mere affiliation: they have not interacted with him. Those users remain on that instance, and defederating will do nothing to protect them if he attempts to radicalise them; however, a moderation team can monitor the users of that instance and continually assess the risks and whether defederating later is reasonable to them. What can, in fact, sometimes happen is the opposite: the Nazi gets bullied out of there, or -- as in the Nazi bar analogy -- the users notice the Nazi and leave of their own accord (at which point I'm sure the calculus will shift in favour of defederation); perhaps such users move to fedi in this scenario, having not been ostracised for reasons they would not otherwise have understood.
Finally:
Does your instance currently block mastodon.social? If not, as some instances have out of concerns for its moderation & size, then that is an example of what I was describing which you quoted and responded "No." to.No instance should be hosting a fascist who has masked thugs literally kidnapping people off the streets without due process.
Any instance that hosts such a person is itself supporting fascism, and should be shunned by everyone. Admins should defederate it, users on that instance should leave it.
The idea is to isolate not only fascists but those who tolerate and help fascism.
Fascism has to be resisted in every way possible, while such resistance is still possible.
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Bluesky are openly welcoming, verifying and hosting accounts of prominent far right politicians. Trump's VP Vance is now on Bluesky:
https://bsky.app/profile/jd-vance-1.bsky.social
"We welcome the Vice President to the conversation on Bluesky" (Bluesky in their email to Fox News)
More
: Bluesky is centralised, run by a for-profit corporation, its CEO has blockchain background, it is partly owned by VCs & Blockchain Capital.Bluesky are going down exactly the same Nazi Bar path as Twitter.
(via @mastodonmigration)
In a recent @WIRED interview, when asked "Would you welcome President Trump?" CEO Jay Graber responded "Yeah—Bluesky’s for everyone." So their welcoming of Vance doesn't surprise me. (I don't support this choice, to be clear.)
https://www.wired.com/story/big-interview-jay-graber-bluesky/
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In a recent @WIRED interview, when asked "Would you welcome President Trump?" CEO Jay Graber responded "Yeah—Bluesky’s for everyone." So their welcoming of Vance doesn't surprise me. (I don't support this choice, to be clear.)
https://www.wired.com/story/big-interview-jay-graber-bluesky/
I guess Bluesky's unofficial motto is now "Bluesky: the social network that welcomes fascists".
That is even more disturbing. Total lack of morality from Graber and Bluesky, at a point in history where people need to be taking a stand. Spineless bunch of greedy cowards.
Follow-up question should have been about whether Graber supports neo-nazis being on there, for example the neo-nazis Trump pardoned.
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Bluesky are openly welcoming, verifying and hosting accounts of prominent far right politicians. Trump's VP Vance is now on Bluesky:
https://bsky.app/profile/jd-vance-1.bsky.social
"We welcome the Vice President to the conversation on Bluesky" (Bluesky in their email to Fox News)
More
: Bluesky is centralised, run by a for-profit corporation, its CEO has blockchain background, it is partly owned by VCs & Blockchain Capital.Bluesky are going down exactly the same Nazi Bar path as Twitter.
(via @mastodonmigration)
@FediTips @mastodonmigration Could you please explain what you mean by Bluesky being centralized? I still don't understand federated social media very well.
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@FediTips @mastodonmigration Could you please explain what you mean by Bluesky being centralized? I still don't understand federated social media very well.
Everything on Bluesky flows through a central relay system controlled by the Bluesky Corporation. In practical terms they have complete control over everything, which is dangerous if they decide to do bad stuff.
"I still don't understand federated social media very well."
This guide might help? It tries to explain why having lots of independent servers is really important for the health of a social network:
https://fedi.tips/why-is-the-fediverse-on-so-many-separate-servers/
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Do you love being scared that fascists are going to beat you up or kill you?
Because that's the effect Vance has on vast chunks of vulnerable minorities.
Maybe you could stop joking about this and address this seriously.
I'm not being smug about Bluesky, I'm being scared and angry. Can you have some empathy for that?
I don't give a shit about tech, I give a shit about people who are scared. If tech exists, it should be to protect such people.
man, the sheer gall you have to bring minorities into this...
Like bannuh, you do realize that fedi treats people of colour abhorrently badly too, right ??? (hell, it's way, way, wayyyy worse for us over here ! )
So dude, don't go trying to rope in minorities into this, as it's awful over here on fedi for us !!
And as a person of colour (and I'm confident that folks like me feel the same way), I'm saying this- that we don't want you to use us as convenient shields for your misinformative self.
And if you don't like us saying that, then you can go and take yourself back to whatever cushy, white suburbian hell you came from.
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man, the sheer gall you have to bring minorities into this...
Like bannuh, you do realize that fedi treats people of colour abhorrently badly too, right ??? (hell, it's way, way, wayyyy worse for us over here ! )
So dude, don't go trying to rope in minorities into this, as it's awful over here on fedi for us !!
And as a person of colour (and I'm confident that folks like me feel the same way), I'm saying this- that we don't want you to use us as convenient shields for your misinformative self.
And if you don't like us saying that, then you can go and take yourself back to whatever cushy, white suburbian hell you came from.
I think there is some misunderstanding here?
Vance's Bluesky post is attacking queer people. I'm not "roping in" anyone, Vance and the far right hate me as a queer person.
In my part of the world the word "minorities" is pretty general and also covers queer people, disabled people, language minorities etc.
I don't know if this is an American vs European english thing, but I'm talking about vulnerable minorities in general, not specifically ethnic minorities.
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That's a bridge, not actual federation.
And blocking just Vance is not defederation. It does nothing to isolate the instance that is hosting him and platforming him. If you want to defederate, you need to block the entire bsky.social instance.
@FediTips @alexia love how you try to tell them what they are. Eff off with your performative agenda.
Have you defederated from Mastodon.social and Mastodon.online after years of Black and Brown folks pointing out the harassment, antiblackness, Islamophobia, etc
You make a lot of noise but are you backing it up? There’s been CSAM on .social, did you defederate? Stop spouting as if you know what you’re talking about when you consistently look foolish -
@FediTips @alexia love how you try to tell them what they are. Eff off with your performative agenda.
Have you defederated from Mastodon.social and Mastodon.online after years of Black and Brown folks pointing out the harassment, antiblackness, Islamophobia, etc
You make a lot of noise but are you backing it up? There’s been CSAM on .social, did you defederate? Stop spouting as if you know what you’re talking about when you consistently look foolish1. You're accusing me of being performative
2. You're saying people should defederate from mastodon.social
3. You're posting from an account on mastodon.socialI regularly post about how being on mastodon.social is a bad idea due to poor moderation and putting the network at risk, I have a whole article about this: https://fedi.tips/its-a-really-bad-idea-to-join-a-big-server/
Mastodon.social blocks my posts from trending there because they were so pissed off with this.
