Mallory ?️⚧️
Ever see a post that gets stuck in your head all day, but you can't figure out why? This toot from @timnitGebru did this to me today:
https://dair-community.social/@timnitGebru/109501639967911597
It's not that I care about quote toots (I'm agnostic about whether to add them). What bothered me is the notion that we *ought* to structure our social platforms to maximize the reach of activists. Something about that has rubbed me the wrong way.
Alexandre Oliva
Sergia (She/Her) ☮️??️????
@timnitGebru @malcircuit what if we just fork Mastodon and do a backward-compatible platform for activism specifically?
Timnit Gebru (she/her)
@malcircuit So activists are the issue here? People shouldn't look at those using a platform as a lifeline to save their own and other's lives, and say they're the ones who should figure things out. These are the types of issues I've seen in the suburbia type experience of the fediverse.
Mallory ?️⚧️
Maybe the Fediverse isn't the best place for activism. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it. Maybe the activists need to devote their attention elsewhere if they want a platform that hands everyone a megaphone
Mallory ?️⚧️
There's an infinite number of issues in the world that I *could* pay attention to, but very few I can do anything about. I've really enjoyed mastodon the past few weeks precisely *because* I'm not being bombarded with negative news all the time. You could say that's me sticking my head in the sand, but for someone that's prone to anxiety and depression, this is an important part of self-care. I can't help anyone when I'm depressed.
Mallory ?️⚧️
I'm trans, so I get wanting to rally people toward a cause, but does every platform need to be focused on that? Does it need to be *designed* to maximize that? Like, can't we be allowed have a quiet little corner of the internet to ourselves where we aren't constantly being bombarded with messages from people telling us that the sky is falling?
Sergia (She/Her) ☮️??️????
@lxo @timnitGebru wondering what everyone thinks. These are just some brief ideas, which are probably flawed in many ways. Deep inside, I don't know. All I want is to have less crises and to be less lonely at the moment, and to find a job that is good for me and everyone. Maybe I'm subconsciously finding a "tech solution" to this, bc I want to do it... What do you think and feel about this?
Sergia (She/Her) ☮️??️????
@lxo @timnitGebru I am now sitting and processing emotionally what happened during all those years. I'd love to look at posts about good things. But I've already subscribed to activism.Of course, like before, one can say "use your willpower to do what's right for you".As before, I answer "it's not that easy"
Activism and non-activism are connected, and it would be foolish for me to deny that. So when I see something political, I am of course interested, even though I'm not ready6/
Sergia (She/Her) ☮️??️????
@lxo @timnitGebru I get to some extent that it's frustrating for @timnitGebru : it's very frustrating for me that Russians didn't want to talk about politics when Putin was preparing for his war and doing it (I'm Russian). Before I was into that, I remember that I didn't want to talk about it because I was just too tired and busy, and it all was just too sad, not because I didn't support the opposition per se.
On the other hand, I get the frustration of too much sadness 5/
Sergia (She/Her) ☮️??️????
@lxo @timnitGebru initially "right wing" was for "small government", and some people are still there. I've had decent convos with them and realized I need them: I imagine something with a government social aid, they say "it's gonna be corrupt" and that's totally correct: USSR is an example of that...
All of that to say that there's a lot of consent missing - people who *want* to discover and discuss certain topics don't see them, and people who don't get bombarded with them 4/
Sergia (She/Her) ☮️??️????
@lxo 3) features for sharing that @timnitGebru was talking about - for activism I believe there could be some additional features, like being able to send the post to a feed of, say, a right winger, if they consent. Some of them are not so horrible - like, there are lbgtq people who say "let's eradicate cis people",but it's not the whole of LGBTQ. Some white people want to learn.some cis straight white men want to learn.*If* they consent, they would see that (say, 1 post per day)3/
Sergia (She/Her) ☮️??️????
@lxo in this safe space mode, I don't see emotionally charged complicated sad posts. I want to actually do something about those things. When I'm ready (rested, ate, happy etc) I can do that - donate, write some response that is good etc. When I'm not ready (hungry, angry, sad, etc) it will probably make me more sad, or I'll write some overly negative thing. Of course, ideally I could do that myself, just not read it, what's not good for me now, but as we all know, it's not easy.2/
Sergia (She/Her) ☮️??️????
@lxo I don't really know :) just feel like we can consensually be here, and trying to figure that out.
I guess the feature I'm looking for is being able to
1) have a human-friendly interface for muting/unmuting things. Say, I swipe left on the post, the topic goes to mute for an hour (or I say for how much, or the author etc). There's a separate feed for *some* muted posts (say, politics, activism, news etc). I swipe right and it appears on the main feed
2) "safe space" mode 1/
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