@mekkaokereke

On the subject of improving Mastodon. This may be an opportunity to rekindle developer attention on the 'Followers Only' dogpiling harassment vector. Felt like some progress on the issue was made back in November, but don't know where it stands now.

cc: @stefan

@mastodonmigration

I wonder if @scottjenson might be interested in connecting with
@mekkaokereke, that is, if he'd like to share some thoughts.

(Unless you two already spoke, in which case, please disregard!)

@mastodonmigration But yes, that particular issue, I have not heard/seen any updates either.

@scottjenson @mekkaokereke

@stefan (they have, afaik, as Mekka was involved in quote posts)

@stefan @mastodonmigration
Yes, @mekkaokereke and I spoke about to how best present Quote Posts and his advice had a direct impact on what we shipped. We're about to reach out for another round of discussions with a wide range of people (but I don't think we've contacted Mekka just yet)

It's so tempting to take the engineering approach and think "this feature will do it!" when we likely need to back up and talk about bigger issues such as culture and moderation.

@IveyJanette @mekkaokereke "Oh,and Mastodon is international." This is one of the main reasons why I'm here and not on BS. Pre-Musk Twitter was already overwhelmingly American, and it just made non-US discourse a lot harder because Americans would reply-guy with assumptions that it was all about them. Fedi is a lot more culturally diverse when it comes to nationality. That said, I am happy to hear that the racism issue is being acknowledged more, it definitely was a very ugly blind spot here.

@scottjenson @stefan @mekkaokereke

It is great to see this conversation take off. You did a fabulous job with quote posts and it would be wonderful if this issue could get the same kind of careful attention. Completely agree that a proper requirements driven approach is warranted. Thank you.

@mastodonmigration always happy to chat

@scottjenson
@mekkaokereke
@stefan

Great. Just to be really clear. What seems to be the issue is a type of hidden dogpiling or 'brigading.'

A tight group folks who's purpose is to harass someone follow each other, 'the brigade'.

One of them composes a harassing post specifically targeting someone who they @ mention, and post it using "Followers Only" reply controls.

The rest of the 'brigade' piles on.

The post is only seen by the targeted person(s) and the harassers.

@scottjenson @mekkaokereke @stefan

There may be other similar issues, but this one clearly seems to be a problem that is often cited.

@ainmosni @IveyJanette @mekkaokereke

I would not say that. I made contact with some awesome people from outside Europe and North America on Old Twitter by deliberately seeking them out, such as an electrical engineer from Kenya or a folklore researcher from Pakistan. They were actually out there, though the algorithm favored people from your own cultural environment.

Mastodon, on the other hand, has a user base that is _heavily_ centered on Europe and North America. I have been wondering how to change that for quite some time.

a place uncomfortable for black people? on the fediverse i have never been in touch with a topic related to the skin color of somebody. to me - it simply does not exist. which is nice! …while in x, insta and probably all other centralized/directed/biased social media apps it is all about armageddon… seems the techelite wants to push the world into chaos. as they consider crises as a good business model to become richer

@frocksupreme

I’ve seen a lot of posts from black folks who have encountered racism here, far more than would let me dismiss it as statistical outliers (no platform will ever make everyone happy, but if the people who are unhappy are clustered in a particular demographic then it’s a symptom of bias).

The thing that confuses me is that a lot of other marginalised groups seem to constantly report either positive or less-negative-than-elsewhere experiences here. I am curious why, for example, trans people seem to have better experiences than black people here. It suggests that prejudices against different groups are manifesting in different ways and that the tools for addressing the arising problems need to be different. I’ve not yet seen anyone articulating what the differences are though, and since I tend to see these things only second or third hand, I am not able to answer the question myself.

@david_chisnall what do you mean when saying here?

@frocksupreme The Fediverse.

everybody creates an ownbubble. racism is not part if mine. i bubble other topics. never met racism on mastodon. but my impression is, mastodon is less radicalized than bluesky. on bluesky there is a difference…

@mekkaokereke

Some of us like to think that we are capable of learning, if we are hit over the heads with the facts often enough.

mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io will you be at FediForum? I'm positive someone will start a session today about BlueSky's latest controversies and how the fediverse can be re-evaluated in order to provide a better alternative.

cc juergen_hubert@mementomori.social scottjenson@social.coop mastodonmigration@mastodon.online thisismissem@hachyderm.io stefan@stefanbohacek.online

@juergen_hubert @ainmosni @IveyJanette @mekkaokereke

Here are some threads by @feralthoughts on the current issues with bringing in folks from the global south that I found very thoughtful and informative:

https://union.place/@feralthoughts/114030586394502623
https://union.place/@feralthoughts/114037639193329163

@frocksupreme Trans people have more safety in numbers here than POC.

One very easy trick to hide dogpiling from everybody else is to make a followers-only post and tag the person you're harassing.

Also, white folx like us don't always recognize racism for what it is when we see it.

For the history, https://logicmag.io/policy/blackness-in-the-fediverse-a-conversation-with-marcia-x/ is a good read

On what you can do now, https://privacy.thenexus.today/start-making-the-fediverse-less-toxic/