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@Gargron Yeah so please block out Threads

@thibault I think it is a good thing that that is done on server level so people have a choice.
If Mastodon wants to play a serious role in the social media landscape things are a little bit more complicated as black&white.
@Gargron

@vosje62 @thibault @Gargron

i think it's pretty black and white that threads is the same company whose algos got us into this mess

i think anyone who sees working with meta as benign is naive, at best

and i think mastodon not blocking threads is deeply unserious

you don't get "to play a serious role" serving the very same malice that mastodon was created to oppose

you get laughed at and then discarded

@benroyce, @vosje62, @thibault –

But you didn't respond to Paul's point. Wasn't the whole point of Mastodon to provide an *alternative* client for an *open* network that no individual or company needs permission to use, allowing for a plurality of values and policies across instances?

By all means, pick an inherently walled technology if that's what you want, but asking Mastodon to be that seems like asking Mastodon not to be Mastodon.

@Starfia @vosje62 @thibault

I think at this point we're well past the "if you don't let plutocrats and nazis on your network you're a hypocrite" argument, wouldn't you agree?

Freedom doesn't mean letting actors who oppose freedom free reign- a logically sound point. There is no contradiction

Because we're talking about a social contract

I grant you as much rights as I grant myself

If you use those rights to say someone doesn't deserve rights, you've voided the contract and I owe you nothing

@benroyce, @vosje62 –

I'm not invoking that argument. Freedom to instantiate and manage a server does allow a platform to (ridiculously) oppose such freedom, but of course doesn't amount to the right not to be blocked by anyone or everyone.

@Starfia @vosje62

i'm confused, maybe

this point: "ridiculously"

what do you mean

do you agree that the only way social media will ever function is if you block bigotry and trolls?

is that "opposing freedom" in your view?

i could be completely wrong, i'm just not getting a good bead on what you're saying here perhaps

@benroyce, @vosje62 –

We seemed to be talking about the act of criticizing or opposing the policy that permits such criticism to begin with (such as a person exercising their right to free speech by vocally opposing free speech).

I agree that act is silly and obviously self-contradictory, but I don't think that means it should be an exception to protected speech. Free speech by nature permits all kinds of silly and ridiculous speech.

@Starfia @vosje62

what do you think of this:

everyone is assumed the right to free speech

but if you use that speech to attack freedom, you've abrogated the right

i'm not saying anything original nor profound

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

"We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal"

@benroyce, @vosje62 –

I fathom the reasoning.

But we're talking about speech, are we not? There's no destruction of freedom without someone actually doing something.

If someone amusingly uses the open Web to argue against the open Web, others get to criticize or ignore them. If they start taking hammers to servers, others should be able to call the police.

@benroyce, @vosje62 –

But it shouldn't happen that people are entitled to call police because someone else is using the open Web to argue against the open Web.

I don't think that's contradictory either; yours and mine are just two responses to the same problem. Mastodon's response happens to resemble mine, while people are suggesting Eugen switch to one that resembles yours. It's possible; it's just never been Eugen's goal, and those people seem not even to understand that.

@Starfia @vosje62

What's weird to me:

Freedoms: we agree

Those who oppose freedoms: we are both opposed to those who oppose freedoms

Opposition to Opposition to freedoms: i say yes that's what i am doing. you say no, that's wrong. But it's exactly what you're doing, in your own words, in your previous comment

It's almost like you're hesitant to embrace what I am saying, but if you thought about what you yourself are saying, you'll see we're saying the same thing

@Starfia @vosje62

As for "some guy opposes freedoms but he should be allowed to talk and be argued with." But that's what bigotry is. "This race/ religion/ sex/ orientation/ etc isn't equal": yeah, nah. we just squash it

Because there's nothing to argue with

It's just dishonesty and malice. There's nothing to gain and what they are saying is done in bad faith. Nothing is achieved by engaging with it, it's just toxic crap to lose, to improve the social commons. Or have it descend into bullshit

@benroyce –

(Thanks for staying with me. And good to meet you someplace on the Internet, by the way.)

• Do you agree with those who hold opinion x?

• Do you think people should be forbidden to express opinion x?

You're telling me I'll discover those two questions are identical if I think about it, but the difference seems obvious. Why do you think they're identical?

@benroyce –

I think you're also wrong about bigotry implying bad faith. "Every person with this hair colour is bad at that activity"? All that's necessary for someone to believe and repeat that in *good* faith is to be taught it by a trusted adult. Eventually asking "is that really true? What is the evidence for it? Who's studied it?", can help finally dispel it.

If people aren't allowed to talk about that stuff, how are the mistaken ones going to think to question what they've learned?

@Starfia

i'm a doctor. i'm trying to talk to other doctors

some dude: "vaccines don't work. vaccines = deep state. vaccines kill" etc

your instance is going to axe the account

because the point is to socialize

not spend your time educating morons on good faith engagement, honesty, and cognitive coherency

the issue isn't the rights of an idiot or troll to destroy social media

the issue is our rights to have a social media experience without lies and noise, some of it organized malice

@Starfia

that's disinfo. with bigotry it's even worse. with bigotry it isn't about ignorance, by design or honest ignorance, bigotry is about *denying the rights of others*. now we're talking freedom... and now we're talking about people who deny freedom... given freedom to deny freedom???

which destroys freedom

da fuq

"but how will they learn?"

who gives a fuck about some malicious moron?

the point is about *our* social experience, *our* freedom, to be free of toxic, destructive noise

@Starfia

"If people aren't allowed to talk about that stuff, how are the mistaken ones going to think to question what they've learned?"

they watch. and they read. and they listen

honesty is about looking and seeing first, then speaking

but if someone comes in spouting bigotry, they aren't listening, they don't want to learn, they've already decided to deny you your freedom

so if they shoot their mouth off and are squelched: "oh no i'm blocked. why? oh, i see, i'm wrong"

@Starfia

if you say "they aren't going to learn by being blocked, they'll just hate you and be a bigger bigot"

yes, i agree

and that's on them

we all encounter static in life. most of it undeserved. but some of it, we do deserve. and we see the person was right to respond negatively, and we have to change

but some people are like "i say whatever i want, i'm always right, never wrong"

they are the problem in this world

and they never learn

and we don't have to deal with this toxic sludge

@benroyce @Starfia

Haven't spoken to mother since 2020. I used to joke that her favorite conversation was an argument, but that wasn't accurate. An argument implies two people are saying something at some point. She monologued, & I was lucky to get a few sentences in when she'd go on and on and on.

One night I used the words "Reagan" and "Iran-Contra" in the same sentence. Her 3+ hour tirade afterward is a chunk of time I'll never get back for sure. She just wanted a bobblehead that agreed with her.

When I started having differing opinions & stopped agreeing with her just to keep the peace, she stopped speaking to me. No big loss. I'd been walking on eggshells around her ego for about 35 years and enough was enough. I'm not on social media & don't speak to my family (because they have the same mindset & I was sick of getting bombarded with it on SM), so I don't even know if she's alive. I'm sure she clapped in glee & said plenty of racist shit against Kamala when Trump won.

@CaffeinatedBookDragon @Starfia

so many families have been ripped apart by political agendas that are happy to wield bigotry, ignorance, and lies

@JebKFan @Starfia

so you block, mute, ban, etc bigotry

and either:

1. the poor kid brought up under bigotry, but still possessing honesty and an ability to learn
2. the dishonest sludgemonster bigot

#1 will perhaps learn

#2 will say "libturds! WHARGARBBBL" and never learn

it is not our job to handhold bigots

they are in the remedial class of life

they have to learn on their own

it is not our job to have our entire social media experience destroyed by their need to learn the basics

@benroyce @Starfia I would say the question is: who is almost impossible to help, who is too "expensive" to help, and who should be helped immediately. Because when Biden won, I thought "the US can't go on like that with a 40% MAGA vote baseline. It has to go down or the next crisis could put them back in power".
But I am a teacher, so I really like education. A person with psychological issue might too weak to educate others.

@JebKFan @Starfia

then you've described your personal goal

not the standard for social media

it is absolutely noble of you to decide to figure out the honest ignorants from the dishonest ignorants, and try to help honest ones

it's just that that cannot be the standard for online discourse

because then the ignorants push the signal to noise ratio to a breaking point, and no conversation of any value can proceed for the non-ignorant, and people leave that server, and then the server dies

@benroyce @Starfia That's a fair point. I guess it's a question of detection and balance.

@switch @benroyce @Starfia Fair, but the question is how help people out of ignorance. We might need social media interaction for that. Sorry if my point wasn't clear.

@JebKFan @switch @Starfia

and you'll get that

when they are ready

the problem is, for most bigots, they are in the same scenario as: "you can't cure alcoholism until the alcoholic first agrees that they have a problem"

@JebKFan @Starfia @vosje62

who cares if a bad guy thinks we're the bad guys?

and ignorance and indecency will be with us forever

it's not like germany beat nazism and then that's settled for all of human history

ignorance and indecency is just the toxic sludge of society and it's a constant maintenance effort to contain them

forever

and please don't confuse the honest ignorant with the dishonest ignorant. the former has to learn. the latter will never learn

@benroyce @Starfia @vosje62 The question is: how do you distinguish between the honest and dishonest ignorant? Honest ignorant people are often way, way overconfident.

@JebKFan @Starfia @vosje62

by serious and sustained effort

which most people don't have. and we can't demand they do in a social media environment

you do have that

which is noteworthy and admirable

@benroyce @Starfia @vosje62 And here is why the problem of moderation on social media, especially when people don't want to pay to use the service.
Probably more complex that rocket science, Mr Musk.

@JebKFan @Starfia @vosje62

it should never be paid for. because then the free shit-tier will dominate. i mean it already does, but paying for it won't solve the problem. because 99.999% will never pay for it. the solution lies elsewhere

@benroyce @Starfia @vosje62 I meant only one, mandatory but very cheap subscription fee, otherwise you see nothing. It would be better for privacy and aggressive marketing as well...
Other option: a Gov provide social media, as an alternative? People in the US will think it's like the Pravda, but if you can have an independent justice system, you should be able to have that in a state-run social media.

@JebKFan @Starfia @vosje62

i got another idea

i see you follow me

give me a month or two

watch this space

(2/2)
"... got an egg in the chest while walking out to give a speech during his special-election run to replace Gray Davis as governor of California in 2003."

https://www.fastcompany.com/90321594/watch-arnold-schwarzeneggers-defense-of-political-eggings

Did he respond by egging the guy back, or otherwise visiting retribution on him?

(3/3)

Nope.

"As the video shows, Schwarzenegger calmly shed his sport coat, and allowed security to wipe him off. He did not retaliate. Instead, he cracked some jokes (and in a longer clip, defends egging as a necessary part of free speech and vibrant political discourse): 'This guy owes me bacon now', he told reporters about the unidentified assailant."

https://www.fastcompany.com/90321594/watch-arnold-schwarzeneggers-defense-of-political-eggings

@strypey

i don't understand what point you're trying to make

are you confusing racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, etc., our real topic, with arnie getting egged?

our real topic is dehumanization. rights destruction. bigotry. freedom denial

you don't deal with that gracefully. no one can. because it's endless hate. it's not a one-off political event showing arnie has good style

you're confusing jaywalking with murder

@paulc

I'm thinking of Usenet before "The September That Never Ended". Good times.

@benroyce @Starfia @vosje62