I do believe more #mastodon users should use #BlueSky there’s a lot that the team and users in general can learn from those in the #fediverse and clear up misconceptions
@supernovae unfortunately #mastodon has gained a reputation for being gatekeepers, conservative regarding the way things function here and for not protecting minorities but I believe those are all barriers that can be broken down. Those of us here just need an open heart, mind and some patience
@damonoutlaw@supernovae I mean with all the instance blocks and block lists, what else is left? In fact #Mastodon has gone way too far on content moderation. Banning entire instances based on a couple of questionable posts by a couple of users.
99% of moderation must be done at user level by filters and privacy settings and blocks. Admins should get involved only when things are really going out of control.
@supernovae I do believe so. Other power users from here are also on Bluesky. I do believe there are barriers due to the trauma that people have as a result of big social & what they experienced here when attempting to migrate. Ultimately, they want to feel safe & want to enjoy social media. AOC was directly invited by a BIPOC that directly spoke to the vibe & benefits of Bluesky
Every major reason that AOC and other celebrities that care about Black and brown users are on BlueSky and not on Mastodon, have been covered here, by myself, and by others. Multiple times.
Many of us here opt not to do any of the very basic things that would help people choose Mastodon, then invent reasons why people prefer BlueSky over Mastodon.
These invented reasons for a pre-determined projection of what Fediverse people think these users want. 🤷🏿♂️
@mekkaokereke@supernovae@atomicpoet correct. Also a big part of the current growth of Bluesky is due to minority women. They feel safe there & have shared their attempts to come to Mastodon did not prove welcoming nor safe. AOC is a minority & she aligns with how they feel. If she heard about those mastodon stories from ppl like her why would she make the attempt?
Tech people, especially OSS folk, expect non-tech folk to do way more work than is realistic. Our decision to underinvest and under-prioritize both marketing and user experience design, is directly responsible for people choosing different options.
But rather than internalize this as "How can we onboard better / explain value better / increase safety?" We tend to externalize it as "Why don't they get it?"
People like to pretend that this dynamic doesn't exist, so they try to skip right over the Black women part, and recruit the celebrities, journalists, and politicians directly. But it don't work like that.
I've said many times, that the social media network where young Black and brown women feel comfortable and safe to create, is the one that grows. No exceptions.
@mekkaokereke@supernovae@damonoutlaw For what it’s worth, it seems that folks on Bluesky are becoming more and more excited about decentralization. Which makes me happy. This is absolutely the way social media should go.
But there will be an unavoidable price. And that is communities will need to arise to do the moderating. And these moderators will probably be volunteers.
@atomicpoet@mekkaokereke@supernovae@damonoutlaw mew another thing to add: most of us/the minorities (depending if you want to see it as one movement) fled away from big instances onto smaller, strictly moderated instances like these, thats also why you might not see us on these bigger instances, because we just did our lart in moderation and stopped to federate with instances containing bad actors, and theres many of them, hey even mastodon.social is so unmoderated that I or my moderators on this not as strict instance might defed from it very easily and very soon, cause its a ton of work to suspend single users from these instances, minorities go to their comfortable moderated spaces, you could say their corner of fedi. Black fedi exists. Lgbt fedi exists. They are jhst in their own corner, not visible from a big instance, because they will get defederated on sight.
@supernovae@mekkaokereke@damonoutlaw Yep, and the problem is that some people became religious about certain cultural practices, and that ended up with the HOA aspect Mekka alludes to.
For 8 years, Mastodon (mostly) had a culture that created a safe haven for certain marginalized groups.
Then in November 2022, that culture tried to enforce the rules and they suddenly no longer applied.
@supernovae@mekkaokereke@damonoutlaw This is true too, and I’ve noted that. But nevertheless, I’m having more conversations with people about decentralization, where Bluesky says they want to go, and the whole ecosystem that exists outside Bluesky.
Less people are hostile now than they were a few weeks ago.
@atomicpoet@supernovae@mekkaokereke yes, I’ve absolutely noted your contributions in that regard. That’s why I would like others to join Mastodon and attempt the good educating work you are doing.
@supernovae@atomicpoet@mekkaokereke I have noticed that & I appreciate that. If we are truly believers in decentralisation then this is the way we must conduct ourselves. We must have the public forum and lend our ears. Otherwise we create the environments that big social has but instead of millionaires & bod we are the ones to blame.
@supernovae@mekkaokereke@damonoutlaw Yeah, that’s something I’ve also realized. The longer Bluesky delays decentralization, the harder it will be once they decentralize.
Because the stark reality is that much of Bluesky’s community thinks they’re getting Twitter 2.0. And what they see in Bluesky now may not exist for long (if what Jack says is accurate).
As we’ve already seen here, decentralization is hard to instantly understand once it happens.
@atomicpoet@supernovae@mekkaokereke this is correct and what I’ve warned the team against. They were experiencing a fallacy. It was set up for them to fail the more users they invited & they became accustomed to the single instance experience. It is almost always better to be proactive than reactive. They had the opportunity to get out in front of this
They've generated such a huge buzz, that I can imagine it ballooning to unmanageable +1 million in short time if they opened the doors fully.
Moderation is still an open problem for fully open platforms, some people want tighter moderation, and some less so. How to accommodate 1 million people?
@Ciantic@atomicpoet@supernovae@mekkaokereke high/tight moderation. One of the problems is that many users do not want this power nor do they believe someone not from the bsky team should have this power.
@Ciantic@atomicpoet@supernovae@mekkaokereke it’s not entirely that. I believe their custom algorithms on the user & instance level if it functions they way they say will put it above Mastodons moderation. But, moderation means different things to different people. One lady came at me b/c she essentially wanted to know that users could be deleted & once explained why it’s not possible she lost it. It’s also been explained to them that they can form their own communities & offer extremely
@atomicpoet@mekkaokereke@supernovae those are valid questions. But to 1) he’s only 1/3 members with his eyes on Nostr 2) There is where I believe those of us that believe in the #fediverse can offer assistance and education. The devs are easily accessible. I do believe their custom algorithms on the user & instance level will be of huge benefit in terms of moderation
@supernovae@mekkaokereke@atomicpoet makes sense.The thing is safety is multilayered. It’s not as simple as a block. There’s a number of reasons why minority women do not feel safe. It’s always better to start there. Engage in good faith, be willing to be silent and just listen. It’s not about us or our feelings, it’s about them being heard and valued.
@supernovae@damonoutlaw@mekkaokereke@atomicpoet Here's a list I put together of things I read and heard in case it's helpful. Haven't shared publicly til now, but feel free to share if helpful.
Looking back at it in the context of this discussion, it clarifies why some people would feel more comfortable on a nascent BlueSky than on Mastodon as it exists today.
It feels like the common thread in all of this is moderation. It seems like PoC need a server that isn't managed by white folks. Because they're not going to get the moderation outcomes they deserve from people who don't share their experiences.
What would it look like to have some full-time black mods running some instances? Would that be useful?
You have a good point here, we need to find a way to make it easier for people to set up / run their own instance, share block lists and share expertise so anyone from any background can create their own space based on the needs of the people they serve.
I made another post where I would really like to see more basic digitial skills courses at least mentioning the fediverse, we need to create demand so that will happen.
Once that happens we can also work on more advanced courses to help people run their own instances.
@supernovae@damonoutlaw@mekkaokereke@atomicpoet Thanks for the kind words! But tbh I don't think I or many others deserve much credit here. My takeaway from the list is that yes, there is >0 happening on most items (though definitely not all); but what progress exists is still nascent. I'd love more people getting involved to work on these issues, but most of that needs to flow through Mastodon itself I think. Would love other ideas though.
There are several members of the Black community that are working on their own implementations of Fediverse apps -- both server and client software. I've seen demos. They look fantastic.
I think it's important to boost what these devs are doing.
David! Great distillation/ collation of these issues!
♥️🙏🏿
@are0h made the same point about not focusing purely on Mastodon, but needing to start small, so his initial plan focuses on Mastodon and [miss/calc]Key.
By the way, have you spoken with @darnell? He has a lot of expertise about different aspects of the Fediverse. He also runs a #Misskey server, and is also familiar with its forks.
Misskey (& #Calckey) already have many of the features people are requesting Mastodon to implement, so people can sign up or setup an instance that suits their fancy.
He hasn't finished writing it yet! We want this to be a full proposal (PRD), as if a great big for profit company has produced it. It'll take him about a month. It'll require talking to devs, admins, mods, Users, (and you? 😁), etc.
As a journalist I'll tell you any worth their damn salt ALSO follow Black women. The best articles I've ever pitched as an assigning editor have come from learning from these fantastic ladies over the years and it usually helps me make sure articles have nuance in places white writers (or editors like myself) would miss.
But yeah, if a platform isn't solid for Black creators, it will stifle its growth 100%
@mekkaokereke@supernovae@atomicpoet@Are0h My team is also working on a solution. As too many people have been told “go elsewhere or make something yourself” from the gatekeeping crowd. Thus, that is what’s happening. We can have open ears, hearts and mind to start. Not just ready to jump in with an explanation and or solution. We have to build trust & then provide the solutions
@mekkaokereke@supernovae@damonoutlaw@atomicpoet (I resonate with this so much. When I was in tech I did mostly user design/interface stuff. The rest of my company was entirely back end hidden math kinds of programming and they DID NOT GET what went into making software useable for actual humans.)
@revjorobertson@mekkaokereke@supernovae@atomicpoet that is sad considering humans are who will be using the product. That’s a for sure way to limit reach is by operating with the user secondary in mind.
It is a technically accurate answer that is not only useless to the person with the problem, but remarkably dismissive. Do you seriously expect AOC to say “never mind all the work of being in congress, I have a pull request to create for search on mastodon!”
@supernovae okay but if you want her to devote time to masto instead of other services, the licensing mechanism for the code/implementation is not a critical factor for someone in her position.
Ease of reach, the ease with which her followers on Twitter can reconnect is what she cares about. Which are things mastodon is really bad at, and the things mastonerds trivialize.
@supernovae open source, in and of itself, has direct meaning to almost no one outside of tech.
The fact masto is open source and “grassroots” (which is a term devoid of meaning outside of specific context) are not convincing politicians to spend a lot of time rebuilding their following on mastodon, especially when a LOT of people on mastodon/the fediverse are quite vociferous in their disdain for building a following.
@ainmosni for starters he’s not the ceo and is 1/3 board members. He cares more about Nostr. That same platform is empowering BIPOC that many had a terrible experience when attempting to migrate here.
@damonoutlaw With "he" I'm guessing you're talking about Jack, so are you saying the other founders aren't SV tech bros?
That said, glad you feel empowered, although I think it's less because of the platform and more because there wasn't much of a culture to fight against yet.
The shitty tone policing thing is definitely a problem here, and worth calling out, but I'd rather try to fix something that is legitimately community based, than follow something that was shat out by SV.
@ainmosni it’s not about not fighting against a culture. It was the team actively went out of of their way to support & empower those women. Thus resulting in those women’s contributing to the insane growth & quality of users. The others are not tech bros. I encourage you to look into it. She doesn’t get it all right but Jay is thus far doing a good job as CEO.
@damonoutlaw And the fediverse is far from perfect, like you said, I have more than my fair amount of problems with it. And I'm definitely interested in alternatives, I just don't want to support for-profit social media ventures anymore.
@ainmosni I respect your opinion but that is a culture problem which is harder to fix than a technical problem. While you get to enjoy your experience & call out when you see something others weren’t able to simply allow to. Fixing a culture of 11m+ is difficult & why no one would dare say they’re trying to fix cultural problems on big social. With bsky being on the ground level & actively looking to empower people particularly minority women + LGBTQ+ it’s shaping their culture
@ainmosni Maybe I didn’t communicate that properly. I was stating that the problem is not technical. The probalem is cultural which is much harder to change.
I don’t disagree with your latter point, I’m of a similar mind. But, the average user doesn’t care about decentralisation. Also, the gatekeeping is impacting ppl negatively like big social. Instead of big companies/CEO’s to blame it falls in the hands of the people who claim to be for the people but clearly aren’t. The damage is the same
@ainmosni honestly bro damage by the people maybe worse. As with big social we know their motives. But in these spaces the motives are supposed to be more”pure” so when one encounters those issues it’s actually more damaging
@damonoutlaw I've tried explaining fedi to people on reddit and HN, my experience is that there's a commitment to misunderstanding it. It's not just ignorance but something stronger, I don't totally understand it. I'm not going to join Bluesky but I'm glad you're trying to clear up misconceptions, maybe that commitment will soften for people over time.
@smitten absolutely. I don’t believe in making BlueSky the enemy. I believe in educating, empowering and in user choice. I’m hoping over time we can have improvement
@damonoutlaw So far, Blue Sky seems more interested in sending invites to celebrities, influencers, and trendsetters, than they are in having subject matter experts in areas that affect peoples' lives.
Its their network and they have every right to do so, I wish them well.
@UncivilServant this is not even remotely true. I’m on it daily and I talk to a few of the people they give bulk invites to. They have even asked people to warn them before any government officials and celebrities are brought on
@UncivilServant your message masked absolutely no sense. I never stated that they are hostile & you first sentence is out there. They want to be able to better serve and take care of government officials that is their reasoning behind this. Sheesh
@damonoutlaw Sorry, it was not obvious to me what "warned" about government officials meant in that context, and surely you've seen some of the, ah, more extreme ways that people can mean that.
I apologize, it's my fault for assuming your intent and meaning.
I understand why Blue Sky is invite-only. At the same time, I worry that very nature is going to set its overall tone. It comes across as rather clique-ish to me, and I worry it will be that way when it opens.
@UncivilServant thank you for your apology. Text does make it difficult to effectively communicate at times. Apologies for my tone. I’m glad we can have understanding
@fringe If I come across more I will be happy to provide you with one. There is a lot to learn. We should be empowering and educating others. Not viewing it as a competition
You are 100% in that this is NOT a competition. Different protocols / platforms do different things, and have different strengths and weaknesses. Learning how to best leverage each is key.
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