mahal

@mahal@todon.eu

Leaving Fediverse on 25th.

What's here is the hollow carcass of what used to be an active account.

Here: https://web.archive.org/web/20231218060053/https://simulacrum01.substack.com/p/why-im-leaving-fediverse-distributed

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

mahal, to fediverse

https://web.archive.org/web/20231218060053/https://simulacrum01.substack.com/p/why-im-leaving-fediverse-distributed

Alright, I'm leaving. Here's my article. I'll leave this account up for 7 days to let these words soak in, and then I'm deleting it.

I'm not going anywhere else. This was the last train home. Goodbye, good luck, and may we meet again.

This wasn't a thought-out and planned article — this was a hastily constructed "leaving" note. Yeah, "I'm leaving" posts aren't very original, but it is what it is. See ya.

[EDIT]: Alright, now that it's archived, I've included the web archive link instead of the actual substack link — fuck you, Nazi Substack. There's a reason why the account is temporary.

mahal,

And I'm petty enough to fire some parting shots at Substack before I leave, too (not mine, but still):

https://indignity.substack.com/p/substackers-against-nazis-an-open

Fuck you, Substack. There's a reason why the account's temporary. Silicon Valley squatters sitting on useful tools and public spaces like actual plague viruses.

Websites like these are functionally some people's own websites — YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Substack, whatever — for YouTubers and Substackers who built their audience, readership, and presence there for years and years, I share your pain all too well, especially having had to sacrifice readership and friends twice now that I'm stepping out of here as well.

One day, I hope, everyone lost in this web of tech will move to the realm of the political to solve these problems. That is my earnest hope.

mahal,

And more on a similar tangent from @kissane https://erinkissane.com/untangling-threads

Not an endorsement of everything, but read through — it outlines some of my concerns. Where I differ is that "Fediverse" in its inherent structure is already flawed into capitalist dynamics.

Section — domain blocking and its limits:

"So not only was my post being passed around on a server that should never have seen it, I couldn’t see the resulting trolling—but others whose servers federated with the troll server could. Now imagine that instead of some random edgelord, it had been part of the Libs of TikTok harassment sphere, invisibly-to-me using my post to gin up a brigading swarm. Good times!"

The section "on pragmatism" also reflects more of my concerns, ironically — the externalities of delegating everything and anything to technology, and leaving all social and political frameworks a tangled mess. You get this dilemma.

Sure, technology evolves; but with every evolution — from broadcast tv to mass media to the internet to social media — the exploitation and subjugation of capitalist dynamics evolved with those things, each time creating a newer, more gruesome form thereof.

mahal,

Not that you can call this an evolution the to begin with. As someone who has spent enough time here, I can say responsibility is shifted upon the the individual labourer (journalists, content creators, whatever) to:

• Be mostly responsible for their safety and privacy in things that are otherwise shouldered for you

• Keep their entire presence on balance — server failures, rogue admins, unexpected changes

• Put up with UX inferiority or spend time modifying and changing things to your liking

So forth. I didn't bother with any of these details in my article because so many others who have left (including one I linked) had already said these things, and I don't want to do them the disservice of repeating the same thing myself without credit.

mahal,

Forget legalities, forget code. Let's talk about human behaviour, the messy and unpredictable thing that it is.

You cannot code your way out of bad behaviour, malicious decisions, trolling, and especially corporate sabotage and infiltration.

Though what many of you do not realise is that half of the infiltration step was already complete far before they even talked about federating, because that half was laid down in the structural foundations of this network.

You are already compromised — socially, that is.

And then think about this: this place — whatever laws and privacy policies that bind the federation — compared to Silicon Valley (that little fascist monopoly) is a Wild West variation thereof.

That means even if you can do something about these things legally, it will be a whole lot harder for you to do that, and a whole lot easier for Silicon Valley to get away with what they do — and a whooole lot easier for rogue servers and their hosts. Well, not to say "impossible."

If there was some kind of political initiative besides "let's decentralise," or at least some structural public service foundations (SOCIAL, not technological), then at least I could rest assured knowing our presence, consent, and rights are under protection beyond "good intentions" and "code."

mahal,

How many times must we get exploited and subverted before we realise that our problems with social media and mass media are not solved with replacing old technology with new ones or distributing ownership and calling it decentralised?

This is an elephant in the room, and I'm surprised not a lot of people are talking about it — but then again, most of the people that would talk about it had already left or simply said they left because of the surface symptoms, which I don't blame them for.

mahal,

With all that said:

This is not at all to discredit the thousands of hours of voluntary work done by small instance moderators and software engineers and such.

Despite this backdrop, you are doing valuable things, you are learning, and you are socially and individually evolving. That is a good thing. If you need money to run your instances or just pay your bills or whatever, you are completely valid, and I support your struggles every step of the way. You work is valuable. The things you do are valid.

I sincerely, genuinely wish you people the best, wherever life takes you.

This includes the moderators, admins, and hosts of my current server. Given how fierce and sometimes relentless I'd been (and especially how critical I've generally been of the Fediverse), I think they're champs for keeping me around for this long. Sorry for being such a troublesome guest, @admin! I have in fact nothing but good things to say about you guys' instance — every parting criticism here applies to the federation's network in general terms.

Thanks for having me, albeit for a brief time.

intransitivelie, to random
@intransitivelie@c.im avatar

I'm "not enthusiastic" about Biden, in the sense that I'm not enthusiastic about genocide or weak-willed liberal politics-as-usual or continuing Trump's immigration policies or refusing to use the power of the presidency to do fucking anything, but please, lecture me about how young people need to realize that it's this or fascism. I'm sure that'll move the needle.

I cannot stress highly enough that it's not that young people (of which I am not one, by the way) aren't "enthusiastic" about Biden. It's that they're fucking tired of being told that it's this or fascism so shut up. What happened to the idea that a politician had to earn their votes?

Rather than lecturing young people about the consequences of their "lack of enthusiasm" or you can join them in being fucking pissed off that Biden is doing sweet fuck all to earn their goddamn enthusiasm. And if you think that's not a problem, how about the fact that he's losing Black people? Or maybe you think it's racist to criticize Black people for their lack of enthusiasm? How about Muslim Americans?

The Democrats seem to think that they've got a lock on the youth vote, the Black and brown vote, and women, and they don't need to do ANYTHING to earn that goddamn vote. That's not lack of enthusiasm. That's lack of representation.

And anyway, "not enthusiastic" is news-media-speak for "pissed off about his policies," not, " ultimately not going to vote as harm reduction." So miss me with your moralizing screeds about how young people need to be enthusiastic about a politician who has shown almost no concern for them. I'm not fucking enthusiastic about voting as harm reduction either, but I'm going to do it because as you so love to point out, it's this or fascism.

mahal,

@intransitivelie Yeah, I've always said this in my criticisms of America, American "democrats," democrat-faithfuls, and Biden.

We don't need to be told, as if we were toddlers, that the Republicans are "worse." We know. It's not going to persuade us to speak positively about Biden (especially if we aren't even American/in America). We especially have no responsibility to pledge fealty to their politicians in their war-machine country that's pillaging our countries and enabling/empowering our countries' fascists and billionaires.

mahal, to fediverse

deleted_by_author

    •
    mahal,

    Everything about Zuckerberg and Meta is evil.

    What about , for those of you who do support it but also don’t mind Threads?

    I was an activist since far before October 7th, so I remember:

    Meta systematically — again, systematically — blocked, banned, and/or shadowbanned Palestinian pages, individuals, and outlets. Among the popular ones were pages like “Eye On Palestine,” but even average people faced this. This was during the Sheikh Jarrah crisis alone.

    mahal,

    Then you may say, “okay, then why are most Palestinian activists, people, and figures on places like Threads, Twitter, and Instagram — and not the Fediverse?”

    It’s not because they don’t mind all this or because it isn’t real; it’s because:

    1. Everyone’s there — network effects, therefore switching costs = disconnection from everyone (local and otherwise)

    2. That’s it.

    Don’t kick down on a community that has no other choice.

    mahal,

    @LALegault Meta can filter out pro-Palestine posts though, since they’re running on their own code for their users, so actually, what’ll happen is that we’ll see a greater influx of pro-Israel posts — as is the norm on FB/Insta (unless you deliberately only follow pro-Palestine pages who are lucky enough not to get Meta’s ban hammer).

    It is the reality of playing on their field — and even if we do block them, we’re still playing on their field; Public Service Media trumps all.

    mahal,

    @LALegault Ergo, they won’t see what Meta filters out from us, but we will see everything from them — from the Andrew Tatery to the Pro-Israel stuff to the Republican spiel to even trolls dogpiling people.

    It’ll not go down well. The only thing that’ll tell us whether this happens or not is observing the platforms that do federate with them and how things turn out within a couple of months to a year.

    mahal,

    @LALegault But then we go down the line of free-speech thinking! (even if, ironically, this may not be the argument you’re making):

    To banish fascists/populists, their bad-faith advocates, and trolls — or to endure them by the virtue of free speech, hear out their Hasbara/Nazi-laden propaganda, and destroy ourselves pointlessly arguing w them?

    I digress; I’m in favour of a Public Service Internet, and this isn’t it either — but at the very least, I saw this as a refuge from SV.

    mahal,

    @LALegault “We will see” is the key here.

    I am not too positive about this, because I wasn’t too positive about the Fediverse in the first place — it is still privatised, what we have are simulacra of old media, and everything that went down with Pixelfed only reinforces my arguments for Public Service Internet and against distributed privatisation — and PSI can only be attained through social and political means and ends, not technological.

    mahal,

    @LALegault @Mary625 Mary’s right. Refer to above:

    • They are a for-profit company with egregious humanitarian records

    • Their platform filled w sybils and trolls benefit those w the most capital (e.g., to operate bots, pay for internal boosting, etc.)

    • This stage is market capture: amicable relationships until user on-boarding is normalised.

    • After normalisation comes everything egregious: data exploitation, media manipulation, and more.

    mahal,

    @LALegault @Mary625 Users who otherwise left Mastodon for Bluesky, disillusioned users migrating from Twitter who may have discovered mastodon when looking for alternatives rather than questioning underlying corporate infra, and so many more!

    Even the ability to spend so much time caring about all of this and learning about this stuff is, by itself, a privilege (for which I’m grateful, nevertheless). Not everyone has that privilege, so we can’t blame the users too.

    mahal,

    @Mary625 @LALegault It’d be the enshittification process all over again:

    1. First they’re good to the users
    2. Then they exploit the users for advertisers’/large media organisations’ benefit
    3. Then they exploit advertisers/media to claw in profits for themselves.
    mahal,

    @LALegault @Mary625 I mean, I would block them pre-emptively myself because I don’t want anything to do with Meta, but this veers far off course as to where I stand:

    We need public service media. The weaknesses of privatised ecosystems, no matter how decentralised, prevail. I’m more afraid of rogue cases like Pixelfed eventually agreeing to sell their users out than I am of blocking! I’m so tired of the panopticon, I’d spent so much time disconnecting in vain.

    mahal,

    @LALegault @Mary625 It’s not that any of us are assuming better or worse about the awareness of the other more so than it is raising them as supporting points in discussion, there is no animosity.

    The thing for me is that the matter of federating or defederating is irrelevant to me: it’s about the dynamics of power and control in privatised ecosystems, and as you can see, the helplessness of average users over greater final powers wielded by devs/mods/admins/org.

    mahal,

    @Mary625 @LALegault Btw, this brings me to another point:

    None of these decisions, whether defederating or federating, represent what the majority of the users want. Sure, people can point me to polls, but then if we’re saying devs make decisions based on polls (they don’t…), then we might as well say X is alright with Elon and his polls!

    No, there is no democratic influence. Majority of the users want Threads out, and there is no mechanism ensuring democracy.

    mahal,

    @Mary625 @LALegault Were it public service media, this entire process would be a whole lot different.

    Pixelfed, Mastodon, PeerTube, whatever — call it what you want, but they’re simulacra. The only decentralisation is in form of capital decentralisation. That means users do not control, in function (whatever the legal documents say right now), their data or their presence. There is no democratic means to do so or hold admins/devs accountable.

    mahal,

    @MySelf @LALegault @Mary625 This example takes on a very different angle.

    I have stopped using gmail (also proton like you) but do not mind receiving mail from gmail accounts either for three reasons:

    1. It is email — they’re not public media. The dynamics are very different — this would be false equivalence.

    2. Proton/tuta encrypts your emails!

    3. Protonmail also blocks trackers that often come w gmail accounts.

    Appreciate ur thoughts though

    therealnews, to random
    @therealnews@mastodon.social avatar

    From doxxing to death threats, Zionists are turning to intimidation tactics to silence pro-Palestine voices on college campuses and in the media.

    https://therealnews.com/the-dirty-tactics-of-zionist-censorship-against-pro-palestine-voices?utm_source=mastodon

    mahal,

    @oatmeal @therealnews @endantisemitism @palestine I think with the incoming federation with Threads, this is likely to see an increase — since it was (maybe still is, I don't know) so commonplace in Facebook and Instagram, and Meta is a corporation notorious for its role in genocide (Rohingya crisis).

    It is one of my gripes with Mastodon (not this specifically): people think that human violence and bigotry are something that can be willed away with technology and code rather than through socio-political means. Because at the end of the day, these are human beings (no matter how inhumane themselves) at the other end of the screen behind a keyboard, not code. The idea that Mastodon is "bigot-free" because it is decentralised is utopian, if anything.

    mahal,

    @oatmeal @therealnews @endantisemitism @palestine "Just defederate/block" is intellectual laziness as well as effectively saying "shut up," because you can change servers or block servers or block people, but that doesn't prevent them from making new accounts on different instances or spinning up their own and pressing on.

    mahal,

    @itzpaquet @palestine @oatmeal @endantisemitism @therealnews I wish you good luck. Unfortunately, as it happens, I am leaving — but not without writing why (not very original, I know) — and not because of this, definitely, but rather general problems I'd been talking about for a longer while.

    I hope it all works out. Thanks for thinking about and spending time on doing good things for people/communities.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • JUstTest
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • thenastyranch
  • magazineikmin
  • tacticalgear
  • cubers
  • Youngstown
  • mdbf
  • slotface
  • rosin
  • osvaldo12
  • ngwrru68w68
  • GTA5RPClips
  • provamag3
  • InstantRegret
  • everett
  • Durango
  • cisconetworking
  • khanakhh
  • ethstaker
  • tester
  • anitta
  • Leos
  • normalnudes
  • modclub
  • megavids
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •