There’s the fact that marginalized people are frequently censored in some perversion of moderation. Then the fact that if you don’t follow the “culture” you’re ostracized. Then there’s the horrible ergonomics of conversation, coupled with horrible content discovery (stfu about tags).
Sometimes you stumble onto a good thing by accident and it helps you realize how much you hate another thing. Well, with my whole chest, I hate mastodon.
You gotta ask yourself - who are the people who don’t want quote toots? Who is that protecting? It’s white dudes who don’t want to be called out for gross opinions.
Then there’s just…I can’t be myself in this space. I can’t say anything that is not specifically intended for the white male gaze. There’s no hot girl shit on here because it would make all the dudes too horny or too uncomfortable. And you know what; that’s incel haven vibes.
I’m not sad or mad, I’m glad I have had this place to find my friends after Twitter burned down. But i would never call this a content platform. It’s a glorified email service.
I posted about how the iOS development space is very white, male, and straight. A lot of white, male, straight people seemed to think this was me telling them they’re doing something wrong.
I said that I don’t see a lot of people like me in my field. If your immediate reaction to that is defensive in any way, you’re the problem. You need to examine why that makes you react defensively. That’s my advice on how to improve diversity. Interrogate your own bias.
I just wanna say that not only do I work with the smartest people, but also the *kindest* people, and it makes all the difference. If you’re a manager, assemble people who are genuine and helpful and kind and respectful, and see the great things that come out of it. You won’t regret it.