"Oh no it's bad that people defederate servers"
No it's bad that people who don't understand running communities keep trying to run communities and need to be defederated
This post brought to you by me rolling my eyes super hard at the "oh no defederation is bad for the fediverse" bad takes showing up again
All of these “defederation is bad” takes are, in essence, saying that instance administrators exist to be vanity domain names and that a single contiguous fediverse is both possible and desired.
I reject both of these premises. Defederate early, defederate often, build the anarchic consensus you want to see.
@aurynn Straight up? No.
This is literally admins choosing to end relationships for their users, often with no accountability. If there's actual accountability? then maybe. But there so rarely is.
But not all defederations are the same.
nazis? Bye.
fascists? Bye.
trolling instances? Bye.
mastodon.social? DEAL WITH THE POWER RELATION AND HAVE THE HARD CONVERSATIONS PLEASE. Taking it as defed-or-not is not actually a great starting point for those conversations.
instance whose admin was on vacation for a day and didn't respond fast enough to banning one user who is kinda questionably nasty? Nah. Limit, have conversations, try to build a consensus.
Having to migrate to another server because of spats between admins about people you don't know? That is in fact harmful.
These are our social relationships involved. Damage to them requires accountability for the harm caused.
@aredridel This is what you pay your admin to do.
@aurynn ehhhhh. That doesn’t mean they’ll be appropriately responsible, nor structure those decisions well. It might be a ticket to the negotiation but that’s not really the power relation most admins have with their users.
@aredridel to me, admins are responsible to their users and to other admins. There's a burden of responsibility to comport yourself well to other admins to not get yourself defederated. That is the emergent consensus system at play.
@aurynn yeah I have not yet seen it in any instance I’d want to be on. I have however been subject to an admin spat twice. Both I was told to go duck myself when I complained. And notably not my admins, so while I have a stake in the outcome, no stake in the decision.
@aredridel Federation is a privilege, not a right, and any instance has can defed for any reason they see fit, including reasons you disagree with.
@aurynn why is this a good plan? This damages relationships.
@aurynn actually I find this framing offensive while I guess technically correct. It completely ignores the power dynamics involved.
@aredridel You are not entitled to a contiguous fediverse, and neither I nor anyone else are required to provide it to you. My admin duties require me to keep my users safe, not prioritise your social connections.
@aurynn safe from what? Our social bonds are our safety. Why is the network for if not connecting?
@aredridel Safe from harassment. Safe from admins who won't action usefully reports against people on their instances.
It's not a useful social system if you're afraid to use it because people can harass you.
@aurynn it’s also not a useful social system if people go silent because of third parties with no accountability. I would honestly rather be harassed. I can block that shit. It’s the power dynamics not getting acknowledged that does real harm.
@aredridel @aurynn Instances are communities first, infrastructure second. Wrote my thoughts on federation-as-privilege here
@Seirdy @aurynn i honesty think few pull that off. Only one I’m a part of is and that is barely the case. I think it acts way more as infrastructure and also community boundaries are definitely not coterminous with instances. That’s the problem. Defining instances as communities does a huge disservice for actual communities.
@aredridel @Seirdy And you are more than free to set up your own instance that treats itself as infrastructure and discover for yourself that federation is a privilege, not a right.
@aurynn I keep considering it but that is a hell of a lot of privilege I have to do so. To say that to basically anyone but me is a heck of a take.
@aredridel You not liking the anarchic consensus that admins have come to doesn't make you entitled to change that consensus.
@aurynn and this is why the fediverse has a consensus on racist power dynamics and not acknowledging its problems. That’s a bug not a feature.
@aredridel This cuts both ways - I'm not entitled to federation either, and I have to pay close attention to what I do and learn the ways I'm being racist and try to learn to not be that, because I have an obligation to my users to not fuck up in front of the other admins.
@aurynn and yet here we are with the exact power dynamics that have driven away so many. There are inherent contradictions here! Navigating them is hard, not absolute like it’s been painted. We have to acknowledge the power dynamics. That’s why 8pt went so horrible. What was said ignored all the power dynamics. That’s why lgbt tech is such an untrustworthy instances. Yet: it has so many connections that blocking it does real harm.
@aredridel What happened with 8pt was because of a consensus model of "we're not going to talk with you if you're going to harbour abusers." Admins get to decide on the safety of their users, not 8pt.
@aredridel regardless, we obviously disagree pretty fundamentally here, so I don't know that there's a lot to be gained by arguing about it
@aurynn lotta people I know didn’t get accountability from their admins on that. It was an epic failure of accountability.
@aredridel then they should demand better from their admins, because their admins are demanding better from 8pt
@aurynn ? They are and get told to fuck off. And to change communities if they don’t like it.
@aredridel And I'll support them in saying that. If you don't like the administration on your instance, you can leave and find another one that's more aligned with your ethics and goals.
@aurynn that’s the thing. You can’t. There is no listing. There may not be one. Espeically at intersections, that is tantamount to “run your own instance for just you.” Which implies no community. And implies “fuck off if you’re not financially stable”
@aredridel There are several listings, joinmastodon being one of them. I'd have to go find the other ones, but they do exist.
But. Like. Yes, that is the answer and will be the answer - find a new instance or make your own with the collective decisionmaking via Loomio or w/e that you want. Admins are responsible to their users in as much as they *have* users, after all.
@aurynn they don’t list the ethics. Nor are actual ethics listed, you only find those out after a moderation action that’s visible and contended.
@aredridel then we should be normalising getting admins to write down those moderation guidelines, and how it'll work for users.
@aurynn yeah ugh I hate this take. It’s the “move out of Florida if they pass bad laws” of the fediverse. To actually have that be viable requires massive organizing an alternative. That’s not done, we’re at the “that law is bad” stage.
@aredridel I'm not here to provide neutral infrastructure, I'm here to make better infrastructure.
@aurynn @aredridel and lose your history.
This will get better when I can leave and not abandon my history. But for now, it’s not. I’m happy to see calckey working on migration complete with history.
@dariaphoebe @aredridel mmm as an admin I’m definitely nervous about post importing, opens up liability issues I’d not be keen on. I’m watching how it gets used for harassment with CalcKey and hopefully Eugen learns from that before implementing it in Mastodon.
@aurynn @aredridel the answer of “just leave your community” is a non-answer until you’re not abandoning your history; I get why you’re nervous tho.
@dariaphoebe @aredridel I agree with you, “just leave” sucks heaps when there’s no way to import history. It’s shitty.
But, how do we make it not an attack vector? That’s a hard question.
@aurynn there is no consensus on this either. Lots of people are rightfully questioning it.
@Seirdy wow “don’t like it just move” is a hell of a take. And wow the lack of acknowledgement of intersectionality here. Oof.
@aredridel @aurynn my admin told me literally to go away, and that he objected to me noting that a thing involving trans women and the power dynamics at play were at play. Claimed the mods were accountable, that I wasn’t paying attention when the decisions were made. I was, they didn’t care about my opinions at the time, don’t now, and while I would happily pay admins, paying these would be a mistake for me. I can get disrespected for free, I don’t need to pay for it.
@dariaphoebe @aredridel what instances were involved here?
@aurynn @dariaphoebe for me most recently tech.lgbt. They do not explain moderation decisions to outsiders. (Possibly at all, unclear)
@aurynn @aredridel the lgbts who are techies and the more than seven points.