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@nonlinear @greenWhale @SallyStrange @aud @aral @eatyourglory gosh, the whole human kind must have suddenly become dumb and unable to understand written English.

I’ll try and repeat the concept in simpler words.

Advocating for the empowerment of minorities is exactly the opposite of social darwinism.

Telling your kid “it’s ok to go to your school friends’ party, or play with those of kids at the park, and if someone bullies you stand up for rights and let an adult know” is better than telling them “don’t interact with anyone outside of the safe circle that I’ve picked for you - 95% of the people out there should be mostly ok, but that 5% of risk that you may bump into an asshole is too hard for me to bear”.

Empowerment and self-awareness only emerge when you are part of the world, not when you seclude yourself from it.

And I’m not saying that minorities need more exposure to bigots - I’m saying that bigots need more exposure to minorities. Because many wouldn’t be bigots if they had sufficient exposure to people who don’t look or think like them, and they probably wouldn’t have much ground for dehumanizing them. It’s not a coincidence if far-right movements and prejudice are generally more radicated in sparsely populated rural areas than in culturally diverse and well mixed urban centers. Even the worst jerk in a large city is statistically likely to have at least an acquaintance who was born in a different country, has different sexual orientation or creed. And that makes them more unlikely to manifest prejudice.

Oppression is fed by dehumanization. Dehumanization is fed by prejudice. Prejudice is fed by ignorance. And the best way to defeat ignorance is through exposure. It applies in the real world as well as the digital one.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that it’s not everybody’s task (admins, authorities, other users, and society as a whole) to make real or digital plazas safe for everyone. More regulation needs to be in place to hold large platforms accountable for the abuse that happens on them (such laws are already present in most of the EU countries, but they could be improved). Instance admins and mods have to be ready to act on reports. And users eventually need to have all the tools to granularly filter what they want to see.

Problems of oppression, prejudice, platform governance and moderation are not easy to solve, and it doesn’t mean that we should settle for the easiest solution - throw the baby away with the bathwater and prevent any contacts between an outside world perceived as hostile and a “safe haven” designed to shield us from any unpleasant encounter. This kind of awful simplifications belong to cults, not to healthy societies.