Hey friends, serious time: if you haven't watched this video about how a Twitter lynchmob destroyed someone's life, watch it. Watch the whole 15-minute talk; it's well worth your time: https://youtu.be/wAIP6fI0NAI
As we grow the Mastodon community and define its culture, one important question for us is how to ensure that the most tribalistic and barbaric tendencies of humanity, which we often see amplified on Twitter, aren't just recapitulated on Mastodon. Let's think about it. Thanks! 🙂
@nolan is it about doxing? It seems so common these days
@halkeye Not exactly. If you haven't seen it, watch it. 🙂
@nolan nah I'm in a horrible grumpy mood so I'm going to take a pass
@halkeye Yeah you're gonna want to sit down for this one. And maybe grab a stiff drink. 😉
@nolan as someone who doesn't drink, it seems like another reason to skip it
@nolan seems like there's room for development on the topic of how to get out from under a dogpile, even without contacting an instance admin or resorting to blanket bans.
@will I wonder if there are good UI choices that can prevent it too. E.g. I think the lack of quote-tweets may help limit the "hey everybody look at this jerk" kind of thing you see on Twitter. Although I'm still seeing screenshots of toots. 😕
@nolan I actually miss quote-tweets because following conversations is freaking impossible esp with people you don't follow. But fine-grained self-moderation controls made with feedback from people who've been targeted is precisely what's missing from Twitter and only half-implemented here (what do I do as an admin, silence all of mastodon.social?)
If mastodon is like email, then spam filters are overdue.
@nolan have you read Jon Ronsons "So You've been Publicly shamed"? it's all I can think about when I go on social media now
@pat No, but I've been meaning to read it! Might be a good idea now that we're at the genesis of a new social network community.
@nolan You absolutely should! A number of the people in that book did make mistakes, but nothing that deserved to have their lives ruined!
@pat Yeah as he says it's not even so much about the target as about having a fresh controversy every day. I see this on Twitter and it's just tiresome.
@nolan Exactly! it's "lets pile on this and not consider that its a human being behind that account"
I had to get used to seeing "pat" in toots here because on twitter the only people that say that were harassers
@nolan thank you for that, I actually now recall the story from back then...
@nolan Yeah, it's important to think about platform-wide and inter-platform social norms (or maybe consortiums of instances with agreed-upon norms and policy-enforcing, and a form of governance to accommodate deliberation/interpretation of those norms as those platforms' communities evolve). While we should be thinking about not designing platforms that can easily be abused by a small number of people, we shouldn't downplay the role of people/policy (in the vein of technodeterminism)
@nolan uh.. but also let's see what I have say after watching this video
@nolan Thanks for sharing this!
Definitely lots of thoughts. I do wish it weren't an apparent white guy saying it, but maybe that's the only person who had the privilege enough to stand up to such an onslaught.
There is a lot of anger in the world and the world is not just, but I wish we could channel our energies more effectively.
I wonder how we might disincentivize dogpiling and short circuit our reward pathways for this kind of behavior.
@b_cavello @Eramdam Yeah I am afraid I'm starting to see this same kind of thing start to emerge on Mastodon, and it makes me sad. Also to his credit Jon Ronson points out how women almost always get it worse when there's a dogpile.
@nolan personally, my presence here is because i don't like or trust the censorship of the other platforms. i believe that we need free speech because NO ONE has the ability to determine what is or is not acceptable to say. what would a evangelical christian republican censor? what would a social justice intersectional feminist censor? who's right? how much speech is left if everyone who wants to censor gets to censor?
@nolan but i totally agree with the video though. social media lynch mobs are the fucking worst. but note that his solutions involve individuals not joining the bandwagon... not censorship.
@nolan great video and great message
@nolan I think the mere existence and thus importance of locally controlled admins can't be overstated. It's a delicate balance between giving a community a voice and preventing it from devolving into something like the video discusses.
But, for me, that's what we're signing up for within each community.
If it becomes recapitulated on Mastodon it'll be because we and admins let it.
tagging #NoMoreJustineSaccos so I can find this again
And with that, I have gone into full #thoughtleader mode. Lord help me. 😜 This shit's important, though.