@benroyce last night I caught up on all the drama and I'm absolutely flabbergasted... and a little surprised there hasn't been more talk on here about the implications of the false promises of AT Proto's decentralization.

Link has been permanently banned even if he's on Blacksky... because Blacksky uses Bluesky's AppView https://bsky.app/profile/rvbdrm.com/post/3m2jxe5ly722x

Looking up "Link Blacksky" on Bluesky surfaces really interesting talking points

@benroyce so let me get this right: bluesky is decentralised because it is available on different apps and runs on different servers, and willing hobbyists can run their own servers there and build their own apps - BUT all the traffic is still checked, moderated and controlled centrally?

That's not decentralisation, that sounds more like colonialism.

@benroyce Link did nothing wrong, the so-called death threats are a lie

@erikcats @reflex @mastodonmigration @bitsnpieces well said

@benroyce @reflex @mastodonmigration @bitsnpieces the best reply here should have been 'you can mute me if you want to'

Reading all this I want to break a lance for more heavily moderated instances of which the admins get continuous abuse over alleged censoring. Full disclosure: I'm a teacher, I make real spaces safe daily. The people committing that abuse and feeling they have been censored are IMHO the problem.

TL;DR the heavily cis white male skewed population needs to do some learning.

@mastodonmigration @benroyce I have heard this type of abuse explained a couple of times now and I am still kinda mystified as to why the block button isn't an effective way to deal with it.

@leanderlindahl @benroyce

Yes. Something like this. Not trying to design a solution. Seems like a clear definition of the problem is step one.

@mastodonmigration @benroyce obviously i haven't given this enough thought and others spent lots of time thinking about it. But... It seems wrong that you should be able to do a followers only post AND include someone who is not a follower. Then it becomes a "the mob + 1" feature. Let followers only be followers only like it says on the tin. Otherwise say things out in the open.

@mastodonmigration @benroyce This might explain a lot. Even though I'm following folks complaining of abuse, it hardly ever appears in my feed. And of course from the perspective of the victim, it reflects badly on those they perceive to be ignoring (and so, condoning) the harassment, despite the fact we literally cannot see it.

This technique is insidious in another way too. As a moderator, you can't look at non-public posts unless someone specifically reports them, so your ability to understand the context is severely limited. Sometimes you literally can't see the harassment even when you go looking for it.

@mastodonmigration @bitsnpieces @benroyce

@mastodonmigration @benroyce @reflex @bitsnpieces That's generally been my policy. I have a hair trigger on blocks and scolds are about #3 on the list of the kinds of cretins who get blocked.

@mastodonmigration @bitsnpieces @benroyce Sending screenshots to mods does nothing of substance.

Take, say, a band of a dozen harassers. Each one in turn employs this technique. There's going to be a line of screenshots to the mods for each one: say ... five. That's sixty harassing messages before they're gone.

From.That.Instance.

The dozen move to another instance and it starts all over again, only there it takes even **MORE** effort to get reports taken seriously.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

@benroyce @bitsnpieces @mastodonmigration @mekkaokereke I've taken an aggressive filters (likely filtering out a lot of good content) and more aggressive blocking policy to make the Fediverse tolerable in the face of ignorant American "China Watchers".

It's a real problem and it's one Fediverse (ironically "diverse" is in there, though perhaps it should be spelled "Feh! Diverse!") developers need to look at with empathetic eyes.

The Fediverse is better than Twitter. An alarmingly low bar.