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I saw just saw this
from DaintyEco about certain spaces including Gemini, I believe, attracting certain kinds of people who we should be aware of.
In particular, I find this quote reflects a lot of my online experience (of 25+ years)
>we should all be aware of the tolerance paradox at this point, and that tolerating specific extreme views can drive others out, silence, or even endanger them. I've also seen that a love of nostalgia can quickly lend itself to the romanticizing of extremely conservative and traditional ideas that are homophobic, misogynistic and racist, often coming from white supremacists.
Although I am not sure BBS is the right place for this discussion, I am still sharing it here. Some people like me do not have capsules and may want to comment or ask questions. I thought it would be good to open a thread about it here. Perhaps as a way of collecting blog post replies about this.
I would like to add that Nostalgia romanticizing an imagined glorious past is a defining (as in referenve book definitions) feature of Fascism.
2023-08-26 · 9 months ago · 👍 stack, ResetReboot, murdock, Ruby_Witch, sugar, ahappydeath, gemalaya · 🔥 1
Censorship is an extreme idea. Practicing censorship undermines the foundations of any society.
Finding scapegoats is easy and has been done for millenias. It's hard for many to understand that the reason why their life is so dim is less due to with the straw enemy they created and more due with those who have initiated the action. If you refuse to learn and grow beyond the ideology you live under, you're going to be subjucated by it. Most of the time they themselves create the problems themselves, but still blame others. Not doing anything or turing a blind eye only leads too more IGNORance.
I wholeheartedly agree with the original post and with your comment of it. I've seen plenty of harmful content directly on the main Gemini community channels, and on the other hand it's rare to find people who are not white male posting here. The golden age nostalgia of the internet as a "neutral" space for a small group of people is full on in Geminispace. This gives me a lot of cognitive dissonance because I think the guiding principle of Gemini is definitely not a Fascist one, but somehow it's given a "safe haven" vibe to several people who were rejected from other spaces. Censorship is the government taking away your right, not your peers getting sick of your harmful views.
I can see the point the original post makes, however it's way too easy to conflate the existence of certain content with the platform itself. Having been fascinated by Tor and i2p and the idea of hidden places on the Web, I've seen an awful lot of this over the years. The idea of running a Tor hidden service is more often than not met with comments around "what do you have to hide". I don't think that's going to apply to Gemini any time soon, but I'd like to discourage that kind of thinking right out of the gate.
As per the original gemlog entry, they are correct that we're likely going to have to deal with fascists and white supremacists at some point. In particular, Antenna just allows anyone to publish currently. So far it hasn't been highly problematic, but it might become so at any time.
I think that Gemini in particular would be difficult to "moderate" since it's so straightforward to host your own content here. I suppose the moderation would be more focused on the social areas (antennas, bbs, etc).
I find that one of the strengths of Mastodon has been the relatively strict moderation and the tools given for this purpose. Does it mean that the space itself sometimes seems like more of an echo chamber? Yes. Are half of my followers on there trans catgirl programmers? Yes. Do I mind one little bit that this is the case? No, I do not.
One person's dystopian censorship nightmare can be another person's safest space for free conversation.
Seeing that post was a breath of fresh air here.
Censoring bigots and fascists is good actually. They have views and behaviors that harm and kill people and societies.
Humility is key here. Even people with abhorrent believes have goodness in their hearts, and the right balance between acceptance and rejection is hard to find.
Is DaintyEco on bbs as well ? Great post
While it's easy to see awfulness of the far right, some of the most insidiously racist, segregationist and oppressive posts I've witnessed on Gemini are coming from far left. Without a free exchange of thoughts and ideas, even those we may disagree with, we are no better than oppressive regimes we criticize harshly.
stack I don't think anyone has mentioned the concepts of left or right in this discussion so far, and I don't think it would be great to bring them into this discussion. So far everything discussed has been about the danger of giving safe haven to extremist views, white supremacists and people who have engaged in harassment until being kicked out of everywhere else.
I mean, I agree with respect to free exchange of ideas, but I feel like you're reading into the discussion based on your own personal pet peeves. It's possible I've misjudged? But at least consider it.
Well, I think fascism has been mentioned a number of times. Having been called a fascist whenever I dissent from the standard left discourse, and being told to 'shut the **** up, I can't help but bring that personal experience here. Silencing voices you disagree with may create a 'safe' environment, but it's just an echo chamber.
We cant describe a platform as social if it censors every differing voice other than the voice a of a specific member. Communities thrive through diversity not consonance and conformity, People are adults, they can make their own decisions, they do not need a chaperone to steer their lives or views. On all these platforms, we always have the block button, and I havent seen a situation here where the community allowed one of its members to get bullied.
We cant build a universe tailored to the needs of a specific person or group, We need to learn to live with the other and share a space instead of censoring each other.
My view is that humans are great at taking a bunch of rules and doing what they like regardless. A set of rules may have good intent but that doesn't matter if the practise is harmful. The paradox of tolerance highlights this, but a bunch of people try and come up with new rules and declare the problem solved.
No. It cannot be "solved". We have to make value judgements. Often these are harmful and result in over moderation. Just like Twitter has become X through weaponising moderation, so any place may succumb. The key is size, being able to tell someone to piss off without creating an overbearing rule set and framework.
ill leave this comment, and this comment only, for now: allowing speech or action, which infringes upon others action or speech (e.g. fascist, tankie, nazi-aligned, etc), under the rhetoric that it's somehow "free speech" is in fact NOT free speech. anyone is free to make of that how they will, i can't make myself any clearer, other than saying that i wholeheartedly believe it's fine to intolerate intoleration. plain and simple.
great. more divisive politics. I'm so glad the extremists of all persuasions won't shut up. what would we do without them?
why and how is it divisive to say "don't tread on less fortunate/less priveleged people"? when it's "don't tread on me" from the right-wing standpoint, it's "patriotic" (somehow not nationalistic ig r-r) and "revolutionary" yet when someone IS trying to be left alone, it's "freedom hating" it's "extreme". If that's extreme, there's a large sensitivity and ethical issue at stake beyond apparently intoleration being a condition for "all or nothing" in what should be tolerated. nice nonsense twisted malconceived circular logic.
I agree. espescially as a fediverse moderator and admin. It's the easiest thing in the world to just block anything that you object to. It's not the right thing to do imo
@stack I am a far-left in my country and I am suprised and intrigued. I would like some exmaples if you can recall. Thanks
@naf I partly agree. The general sentiment I agree with. However, there are cases where as a moderator myself I just have to choose which population would be under the inclusivity umbrella. I'll give you a benign example to illustrate the point:
On a platform where I moderate we had a comfy existence for years until a massive immigrant wave from Twitter arrived. We were almost exclusively 30 to 40 something hetero men with the same leftist political leanings more or less. We still decided concensually that politics in the public feed would be kept under a content warning due to some of the members experiencing PTSD from police violence and their own compulsary army service.
With the flood, these topics suddenly appear in large numbers without any warnings. New people didn't read the rules or didn't understand them. Old people got triggered and some of them fled, never to return. They had no chance to mute before it happened and it took us 2-3 weeks to finally educate the newcomers. New people don't understand the weird rules, object and blame us for censoring them. We did not push them out, just limited their ability on specific feeds. Is that censorship of their ideaology ? yes it is, but I am proud of it. We protected our suffering friends from people who did not repsect the rules.
Another simple example: Some Jewish supremacists (followers of Meir Kahane, supporting genocidal moves against non-jews) joined and immediately started terrorizing the entire place. We immediately banned them. Tolerating their ideaology until everyone muted them would have been absurd
It's unfortunate that the real life rules of social encounters for some reason have not made it to the net.
In real life if you repeatedly walk up to strangers and start loudly proclaiming your most sacred beliefs to them, you will be shunned and probably eventually locked up. It's just not okay. Everyone gets it.
On social media we have a bit the opposite, you're expected to have an opinion and to let everyone know how you stand. Discretion, politeness--nah. But I don't really see why. Who benefits?
I try to think of everyone I interact with online as a person; and if they're struggling, to remember what a crazy medium it is for interaction, and assume the best. Simultaneously with that I keep an eye on my own interests, backing off if it's too much. Is it worth it? Around here, yes :) so far anyway.
Again, declaring that only fascists infringe on others' freedoms is dangerous. Not to defend fascists, but left rhetoric is outrageously oppressive quite often. And as I mentioned earlier, anyone who doesn't repeat the mantra is labeled 'fascist'. I also find it amusing that the word 'fascist' is tossed about without people even admitting that we are indeed talking about left and right politics.
I don't speak for anyone but myself, but I don't describe anyone as fascist until they get dangerously full of patriotism and blindly go along with persecuting minorities. Unfortunately that does in fact describe a political movement in the US right now. Interestingly, my ideology lines up in most ways with the libertarians, but I'm just not ok with taking away hard won protections for lgbtq people who obviously needed them, rolling back Roe v Wade and banning books in order to protect (control) the children, which is what the party claiming to represent the libertarians has been up to.
Can other groups also attack our rights? Of course they can, and have, and will. But right now, this year, there is one political movement that is by far the worst culprit. If you don't see that by now I think you're probably trying hard not to.
I agree with @flipperzero comments. Unfortunately, I see a lot of the same type of discourse in this thread as I have seen elsewhere on the net: speaking in broad generalities to the point at which it has no meaning, whatabout-ism, both sides rhetoric etc. these discussion tactics do nothing to contribute to the conversation. one thing to remember is that there is no "censorship" here, we are not governments and we all have the agency to ignore, block, or ban on the software that we personally operate.
BBS has a great feature: 'mute thread'. It's a good way to keep yourself out of a discussion that triggers you. Muting individuals is the next step, but I try to avoid it as very often people have many interesting things to contribute but have a pet peeve that makes them annoying. (I am no saint here, although I belive that my personal experience of being bullied into silence is entirely relevant)
@stack This is a good solution for most people, not all. As my example illustrated clearly, muting does not help you when you suffer from PTSD and you stumble upon a triggering post from a new user or a new post subject from a previously non-muted person that you follow
Sometimes I realize I need to pull back and read instead of write. Same thing happens in verbal conversations. I'm not always good at it.
My point is that even when you very strongly disagree with someone, there is often value in giving yourself time, and in attempting to understand context and their point of view. To do otherwise causes things to get heated much too quickly.
We had a situation involving multiple people on Gemini not long ago where I think a number of us, myself included, let things get too heated. It's obvious there's still some hard feelings. I pulled myself back from posting for a while. I think that did me some good.
If you're reading this and you know what I'm talking about, and you were part of it, here's an olive branch. The fact that I didn't mute you means I still think you have something valuable to say.
@aRubes, I think I understand. However there is an argument to be made that if you suffer from PTSD and are easily triggered by things people say online, being online is not a healthy way to spend your time.
Instead of petitioning the Net to accomodate the weakest link, you should perhaps find a nice quiet place with lots of therapy and massage, at least until you are ready to rejoin the sometimes unruly real world.
On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with setting up spaces with specific rules, prohibiting certain kinds of intercourse. Or asking people nicely to stay off certain topics.
The problem is that IRL you talk to a limited number of people at a time, and saying things takes very little time after which no one can hear you! So you can say stupid things, at the risk of offending no one or maybe a few people around you (if you can't read your audience)
Typing crap into a social network makes your words available to everyone who bothers to read it, kind of forever. Eventually, it is bound to annoy someone, and the drama starts. And then, someone 'discovers' it again, and the drama starts all over.
The Internet ought to interpret censorship as damage and route around it. It has not been functioning like that for a little while now. If you’re interested in big-I Internet instead of firewalled lowercase-i internets, this is not a controversial idea.
I know that I disagree with a lot of people in Geminispace, but I would never advocate for those who I disagree with to lose their hosting providers or the ability to speak their mind. Obviously a hosting provider can choose to refuse service and ban whoever they want to.
what stack said
'Instead of petitioning the Net to accomodate the weakest link, you should perhaps find a nice quiet place with lots of therapy and massage, at least until you are ready to rejoin the sometimes unruly real world.'
this is out of context find original comment
Groan.
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