@evan@cosocial.ca
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

evan

@evan@cosocial.ca

He/him. Board member at CoSocial.ca.

Director of Open Technology at Open Earth Foundation (OEF).

Founder of Wikitravel, StatusNet, identi.ca, Fuzzy.ai. CTO of Breather, TRU LUV and MTTR.

Creator of pump.io. Co-creator of GNU social.

Co-chair of the Social Web Working Group at W3C. Co-author of ActivityStreams 2.0. Co-author of ActivityPub. Co-author of OStatus.

Grad student in CS at Georgia Tech.

This network has been my life's work. Thanks for making it.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

evan, to random
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

Wordle 1,044 5/6*

⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
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brooke, to random
@brooke@bikeshed.vibber.net avatar

How hard could it be to just write my own activitypub small instance server ;)

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

@brooke not that hard! I'm working on a checklist right now. What language would you do it in?

AnnaAnthro, to Montreal
@AnnaAnthro@mastodon.social avatar

Protesters set up encampment at in solidarity with Palestinians

https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/protesters-set-up-encampment-at-mcgill-university-in-solidarity-with-palestinians-in-gaza

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

@AnnaAnthro good

evan, (edited ) to random
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

"Displaying Palestinian symbols like the keffiyeh, watermelon, or Palestinian flag is antisemitic."

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

@dneary https://www.npr.org/2024/01/08/1222718339/why-watermelons-are-symbol-of-palestinian-solidarity

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

@trwnh I appreciate the sentiment. I really do want to get a temperature reading on this topic.

At least here in Canada, the Overton window does extend this far. Members of the Provincial Parliament in Ontario have been banned from wearing the keffiyeh.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ont-keffiyeh-1.7185184

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

@evanwolf so, what was your reply?

And is your idea that some symbols of Palestinian nationalism are antisemitic, and others aren't?

Or that displaying them can be antisemitic in certain contexts and not others?

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

@evanwolf 🙏🏼 thanks! A well-put answer. Although you didn't say how you voted!

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

Hey, all. So, this is a complex topic and I want to be careful with it. Here are my thoughts. I am somewhat disagree.

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

I'll start off saying that I believe that intrinsically the continued existence of Palestinian national identity is an affront to a naive heroic narrative about Israel. As a North American, I know what it feels like to be reminded of our unreconciled, and possibly unreconcilable, history of settler colonial genocide of the First Nations and enslavement of Black people. It can feel anti-American, anti-Canadian.

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

I also know that some Israelis and Jewish people worldwide feel this comparison of North American and Israeli history is unfair. It's my best way to access the topic, though, so if you find the comparison less than perfect, pick any other country where romantic patriotic mythos does not square up with historical facts and current life.

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

There is also a roundabout logic in which Palestinian nationalism is antisemitic. Roughly, it says that Palestinian nationalism requires the whole of prewar British mandate Palestine to be run by a Palestinian government, possibly islamicist. It would replace the state of Israel, which is the guarantee of safety for Jewish people worldwide. So, Palestinian nationalism means the disappearance of Jewish people.

evan, (edited )
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

I think it's also possible, but more difficult, to draw a similar line of inference in a two state solution. In that logic, it's impossible for Israel to be safe with a Palestinian state next door, forming a deep enclave in the Israeli borders, and so Israel is at risk militarily, and in this scenario falls, putting at risk all Jewish people once again.

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

The problem here is that many of these assumptions are hard to justify. Palestinian nationalism doesn't preclude the existence of a Jewish state in the region. There are many, many ways Palestinians and Israelis can live in the same region with autonomy, human rights, national self-determination, and safety. It is possible and as a world community we have an obligation to make it happen.

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

Another issue is some Palestinian national symbols are about violent struggle against Israel. The keffiyeh is an example; it's strongly related to the First and Second Intifada. I think for many Israelis and other Jewish people, these specific symbols feel like a threat.

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

Additionally, I think there is some use of Palestinian national symbols to obscure or displace Jewish or Israeli symbols that is hostile. The Palestinian flag on the Yale menorah is a case in point.

https://news.yale.edu/2023/12/10/yale-statement-desecration-menorah

evan, (edited )
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

That all said, I think the symbols of Palestinian nationalism convey some unavoidable truths: Palestinians exist; Palestine exists as a nation with a right to self-determination; Palestinians exist in historic Palestine; they deserve basic human rights.

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

Ultimately, I think it's important to check in on these topics. Is it OK to display Palestinian national symbols if they make Jewish people feel uncomfortable? Probably. Unsafe? Probably not. Is it possible to find an area between "uncomfortable" and "unsafe" where productive dialogue can occur? I think that's the big question in anti-war, pro-Palestinian activism right now.

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

@Jonathanglick fair. I think the point still stands; the keffiyeh is associated with violent struggle.

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

I think it's also fair to say that there are bad-faith actors making the kinds of tenuous arguments I describe above in order to shut down discussion of Palestinian nationalism and ending the war in Gaza. That definitely doesn't help with finding the right territory for discourse.

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

@liaizon @trwnh thanks to you both. I am not as certain that the question is as far outside the window of acceptable discourse as you are. I tried to give my reasoning here:

https://cosocial.ca/@evan/112349765171533755

sarajw, to random

I'm so happyyyyyyyyy!!!

A profile photo of the cargo e-bike taken in front of a wide part of Hamburg's canals or maybe the north of the Außenalster. It's a long tail, big wheel at the front, chunky basket, two seats on the back behind the saddle with a foot rest, padding and guard rails.

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

@sarajw thank you for riding and congratulations on such a wonderful choice

julian, to random
@julian@community.nodebb.org avatar

There have been some scattered discussions I've seen over the past year that mention that @pfefferle's WordPress ActivityPub plugin federates their blog posts out as an as:Note, and that the only reason this is done is because Mastodon only treats as:Note (and as:Question) as a first-class object and relegates anything else to a fallback handler that takes a short snippet of the content, and shows a link back to the original source, thus losing any in-app benefits (boosts, replies, etc.)

Whether this is actually true or not, I do not know. So that's why I'd like to ask Mattias — or anybody else with some context — here.

For reference:

  • as:Article: Represents any kind of multi-paragraph written work.
  • as:Note: Represents a short written work typically less than a single paragraph in length.
  • as:Page: Represents a Web Page.

I have also noticed that Lemmy, perhaps out of principle, sends out an as:Page for new generated content, and only the replies federate out as as:Note. It has unfortunately led to some assertions that Lemmy's federation is "broken", even though it is arguably not the case.

@nutomic, care to weigh in?

I don't even blame Mattias for opting to send everything out as as:Note.

End of the day right now it doesn't matter how Mattias or Nutomic represent their higher-level collection of data, because Mastodon is the largest implementor and neither they — nor anyone else I know of, for that matter — treat anything that's not as:Note or as:Question specially.

But that ought to change. The question is how, but this WG is not at the point where we start throwing around decrees and making up standards.

What's important to me right now is what the landscape looks like right now, and why that is the case.

N.B. The discussion here will eventually make its way to online real-time discussion at one of the future WG meetings.

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

@trwnh @pfefferle I mean, that's what a Collection is

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

@trwnh you don't need a separate type for that. Creating, and managing collections is an intrinsic part of ActivityPub.

evan,
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

@trwnh so, dual typed? I'm good with that.

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