I hope someone at @ProPublica is already connecting breadcrumbs, names, organizations, press releases, tax records, campaign finance disclosures and a trail of #BrokenStair types in the constellation of #LibsOfTikTok, #Oklahoma, and #NexBenedict.
Why is reported illicit drug user, unmarried father of 11 children by 3 women, a man whose social media site is overrun w. hatred & pornography, celebrated across length/breadth of the New Right incl. Christian right?
Excerpt: Evan Powers, a trans student at an Oklahoma high school, said he carries a bulletproof backpack, along with books to use in self-defense. “I’m quite honestly scared to go to school every day,” said Powers, 17, adding: “I have been bullied by people that watch Libs of TikTok.”
The atmosphere, he said, makes it almost impossible to get an education.
#NexBenedict, #Oklahoma#nonbinary teen died after #school fight amid reported #bullying
…The [statement] from the school district provided some background: The fight on Feb 7 involved several students at the HS. It was broken up by other students & a staff member. All of those involved “walked under their own power to the asst principal’s office & nurse’s office” &, per “district protocols,” were evaluated by the nurse.
This year, [Oklahoma] legislators already have proposed >50 anti-LGBTQ+ laws — more than any other state, according to the ACLU.
The man who heads #PublicEducation in #Oklahoma is also a vocal critic of #LGBTQ+ rights. Superintendent #RyanWalters appointed #ChayaRaichik — the #conservative activist behind #LibsOfTikTok, which has targeted LGBTQ-friendly teachers at #Owasso schools — to a state library advisory board.
Libs of TikTok is a far-right anti-LGBT Twitter account run by Chaya Raichik. The account has become highly influential in conservative circles, and it has over 1.8 million followers as of January 2023. The central narrative pushed by the account is "grooming", the lie claiming that LGBT people are pedophiles manipulating children into sexual deviancy. The concept went mainstream after Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a law banning classroom instruction on gender identity or sexual orientation in grades K-3 in Florida public schools, with his press secretary accusing the bill's opponents of being "groomers".
Raichik's posts on Twitter have been directly linked to transphobic and homophobic threats, violence, and attempted terrorist attacks. Incidents include bomb threats against a school in Wisconsin, a near-riot at Idaho Pride, and threats against a Jewish summer camp.
Hass im Netz führt zu Gewalt. Das ist keine neue Erkenntnis. Manchmal ist der Zusammenhang sehr direkt wie man am Beispiel der LGBTIQ -feindlichen Hassprediger #libsoftiktok (#ChayaRaichik). Allein 11 der Schulen, die sie im letzten Monat als Ziel markierten wurden Opfer von Bombendrohungen.
Cole Wagner is just one pro-life activist who has been arrested for sexual contact with a minor. This should not reflect on other conservative activists. Same with all the people #LibsOfTikTok highlights in order to shit on lefties.
There are Instagram accounts posting content today that would prompt many Mastodon admins to defederate immediately.
Those accounts are not being moderated by Instagram. User reports are closed without action. So their Threads version of those accounts will likely also not be moderated.
So many Mastodon admins will defederate from Threads shortly after federation.
So I'm not sure why folks are spending so much time debating whether defederating before the inevitable harm is bad?
@mekkaokereke Great question. A debate has two sides, so on the pro-federation side my take is
the talking points in favor of federation (which I assume came from #Meta) are very persuasive to a lot of the current power structure -- including framing federation as a huge success for #ActivityPub/#Mastodon/"our vision".
some people may be making a tactical decision to signal potential openness in order to keep a seat at the table for as long as possible.
for a lot of people it would be unambiguously good to talk to friends on Threads, and they don't understand the risks others face from exposure to non-friends on Threads.
instance blocking has always been polarizing and (depending on the framing) this highlights the downsides. One of the talking points is that the are "extreme", "toxic", "religious" people who are talking about blocking instances that federate with Meta are "punishing" members of those instances.
dramatically overstating how good moderation is in general today today -- in conjunction not understanding the importance of transitive blocking in today's toolset.
cis people don't understand the threats of #LibsOfTikTok et al to trans people -- it's qualtiatively different from the bigots on the "freeze peach" instances.
there's a lot of potential money sloshing around. One pro-federation instance admin was quite candid about that, but I assume this is at least an unconscious consideration for app developers and hosting companies, many of whom also run instances.
On the anti-federation side, I can't speak for others, but at least from my perspective I see the debate as useful in shaping the post-Meta #fediverse.
Most obviously it's useful to pressure more admins to join the #FediPact or otherwise commit to defederate preemptively before people get hurt -- or at least to get them to commit to as clear a set of criteria as @Hachyderm's. It's also useful to highlight that the people who are in favor of federating are willing to compromise people's safety (including specifically #trans people's safety). And I also think it's a good opportunity to raise the priority of privacy and safety work here, which is badly needed.
Plus, the debates are good for message testing -- and help sharpen my advocacy. One of my posts wound up on Hacker News yesterday and the discussion there pointed out several areas for improvement (like including links about LibsOfTikTok, and also being clearer about a few other things). And I'm working on a revision of the draft threat modeling post, so the discussions also point to ways to make that better.
Of course even given all that, I might well be spending too much time and energy debating, which is something I can be prone to!
Im so genannten Fediversum werden derweil unter bizarren Diffamierungen erste Mauern gegen angekündigte Neuankömmlinge hochgezogen. Wann folgen die Erklärungen, dass Threadianer eben eine andere Kultur haben, die nicht mit den Werten hier vereinbar sei, und außerdem riechen sie so komisch und guck Dir mal an, was für komische Vornamen die haben! Ich werde für mich dann wohl mal chaos.social blocken.
@sixtus die Werte die #NSAbook vertritt, toleriert, plattformed und per Algo boosted aind auch nicht mit meinem Werteverständnis vereinbar - geschweige denn der #FDGO und deutschem Recht.