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   Reckonin’ (madaligned@mas.to)'s status on Saturday, 16-Sep-2023 04:19:22 JST Reckonin’

   • novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

   @anarchopunk_girl not very fimilar with the situation but I feel i don’t have a problem if people don’t like the blocklist but like let people who do use it and they’re has been racist harrassment hurled at a black gender nonconforming programmer when the project is much larger than that and this is all conflict going on during a genocide that doesn’t negate the harm this conflict has caused or the genocide. A lot of harrassment has been directed at someone because their black

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     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ (anarchopunk_girl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 16-Sep-2023 04:19:20 JST novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @Madaligned people do have a right to block whoever they want, whether based on imagined narratives or not, as you say — the problem is that TBS is designed to specifically be an anti-racism block list and it's also part of a larger group of projects that want to integrate themselves into Mastodon servers themselves, and TBS was designed to be a widely adopted block list that basically everyone will use. It becomes much more problematic if the block list that's supposed to be very commonly used across the whole social network, and kind of be the authority on preventing racist harassment, is adding instances to their list for arbitrary reasons. So yes, individuals get to block whoever they desire to, for whatever reasons they want to, but that doesn't really go for people who are trying to set themselves up as authorities on who should be blocked.

     And believe me, there's plenty of criticism of the other people behind TBS. One of my biggest concerns with it is that one of the biggest servers behind it is mastodon.art, whose admin is Welsh Pixie, both of which are known for spreading false accusations and narratives and putting people on fediblock — so not just a personal block for themselves, but an announcement that everyone should block! — for really absurd reasons. Likewise rage.love has also had some problems with blindly forwarding accusations based on hearsay which they then later had to retract. And Ro has deferred to mastodon.art and Pixie multiple times, explicitly, which he hasn't done for other people or instances, so it seems like he's taking queues from her.

     And yes, Ro is not the main or only person behind TBS. The reason he is getting so much criticism is because of the outright transmisogynistic things they have said, the way he can't seem to take criticism or questions about who is blocked or why from people who are asking in good faith, and the way he has levied rhetoric against people who are criticizing his initial handling of building the list or the way TBS is set up. If he hadn't engaged in very hostile rhetoric to everyone who was criticizing him over his mistake, then the mistake would have been fixed and everyone would have moved on. The reason everyone got so mad at him isn't for the original mistake at all, but for the way he handled it when people brought it up. Anyone who wasn't sufficiently nice about finding themselves on this list, which could spread noxious rumors about them and end up with them isolated, and asking for him to take them off, was met with anger.

     And I don't think it was wrong for people to have initially gotten angry over a bunch of innocent trans instances being listed for no reason on his list, with the tags auto generated as hate speech and bigotry, even though that isn't even why they were in the original block lists he was pulling from. Trans women are very often the target of these kinds of block lists and isolation tactics. When we found out it was a mistake, obviously the thing to do was to stop thinking it was intentional and that he was intentionally transphobic, because it was clearly just a mistake born out of momentary negligence, not malice at all... but again, the reason that the anger with him continued was how he responded to people's initial concern and anger at him for what for all the world seemed to them initially like transphobia.

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     Reckonin’ (madaligned@mas.to)'s status on Saturday, 16-Sep-2023 04:19:21 JST Reckonin’

     in reply to

     • novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     @anarchopunk_girl even if people want to reject that fact him being black and gender nonconforming still plays a big role on how he’s getting treated for the failings and mistakes of the code rather than other contributors and people reading so blindly into the intentions of why the blocklist looks as it does including structural mistakes without knowing what’s going on BTS when the reality is people get to block people for whatever reasons imagined narratives or not

     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ repeated this.
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     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ (anarchopunk_girl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 16-Sep-2023 04:21:42 JST novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @Madaligned I don't think most of the criticism of Roe or even most of the anchor at him is for racist reasons at all. I will absolutely believe that a very vocal subsection of the population on mastodon have taken the general upset with him as an excuse to hurl racist harassment at him, but he's been framing it as essentially about racism when I don't think that's the case to the best of my ability to tell.

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     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ (anarchopunk_girl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 16-Sep-2023 04:23:50 JST novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @Madaligned and yes, just because white trans people are being oppressed doesn't mean we can't perpetuate oppression on others. Using queerness as a shield against criticism is wrong.

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     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ (anarchopunk_girl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 16-Sep-2023 04:40:13 JST novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @Madaligned fair enough — please take this as a genuine question then, because I want to understand how to move forward with this: if racism is playing a part even for the people who are criticizing TBS and Ro (both actions and rhetoric) in good faith (of which I believe I'm a part), what can I do about it? Because I genuinely do think that the way the people behind TBS handled the whole situation is bad and that TBS is probably polluted by the mastodon.art set (who are white btw), but I I'm aware of the any criticisms of them will be taken as an excuse by racists to hurl races harassment in their DMs, but I really don't know what I can do about that

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     Reckonin’ (madaligned@mas.to)'s status on Saturday, 16-Sep-2023 04:40:14 JST Reckonin’

     in reply to

     • novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     @anarchopunk_girl I just read your longer post & I mainly agree I was on mastodon.art but left cuz the admin blocking system seemed unfair to me I think my problem is the mainly white people dismissing the racism as a driving factor playing a role and manipulating how the fedi deals with criticism even behind real issues I take with fedi yes racism is playing a role in this dynamic even with the people in good faith cuz the scale of antiblackness and it’s effect is out of our control

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     Reckonin’ (madaligned@mas.to)'s status on Saturday, 16-Sep-2023 04:42:44 JST Reckonin’

     in reply to

     • novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     @anarchopunk_girl I hope people step back & reflect on different perspectives& what they might not be seeing as a white trans person that a black trans person can see.Cuz all white people r participants in racism whether they like it or not & racism has also been causing ongoing suffering on this planet like humans are gonna spread BS others won’t grasp they may recognize em as mistakes sometimes. But effort be made 2 rectify conflict by different responsibility & experiences

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     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ (anarchopunk_girl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 16-Sep-2023 04:42:44 JST novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @Madaligned tbqh, I find myself wishing I hadn't weighed in at all, and had just silently had my own opinions about whatever was happening and went about my day blocking or following people according to who I thought was being reasonable, because in retrospect no matter how I engage with a discussion it seems like I'm going to end up fucking somebody over.

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     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ (anarchopunk_girl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 16-Sep-2023 04:48:45 JST novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @Madaligned that makes sense. My problem with what Ro was saying about his critics wasn't because he was saying that racism might be in play at all, as the given undercurrent in life in the US given how this system and culture came to be, but him saying that that's all the criticism was — that it could be safely ignored and downplayed, because it was simply bigots getting angry that people were identifying them as bigots. That the people who were upset with him for the mistake when it appeared to be transphobia were simply bigots and that was all that was to be said about them.

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     Reckonin’ (madaligned@mas.to)'s status on Saturday, 16-Sep-2023 04:48:46 JST Reckonin’

     in reply to

     • novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     @anarchopunk_girl me personally as someone who also has criticism I speak in an open dialogue about what I don’t think is going to be a useful tool in keeping the marginalized communities on the fedi safe and I say do be loud about your disagreement but maybe also don’t be fast to say racism can’t be playing a part when it’s an undercurrent around everyone life on the globe and just try to navigate that criticism acknowledging that power dynamic & diverse experiences r at play