Notices by Jesse (misc@mastodon.social), page 6

@futurebird lol I came ready for the pushback. ;) At most I think you could quibble about if it’s a left wing political project, or it’s a political project in which 90+% of the participants happen to be left wing*. It’s definitely a political project though. And there’s definitely a conflict between just wanting to socialize, and wanting to advance the goal of letting socialization happen differently.
* Referring to this fediverse of course, not just anyone running Mastodon or AP

Yes the constant meta (and Meta) discussion here is tedious, and often much worse, but what you have to realize is that this isn’t just a social network, it’s a left/progressive political project. I don’t know how many left/progressive political orgs you’ve been involved in, but let me tell you, they are kind of known for endless, agonizing talk about process, factions, outside threats, inside threats, strategy, grievances, etc. And if you have a solution for that, you just might save the world.

Time for some game theory (but actually)

Here’s my understanding of the initial conditions: we have Libs of Tik Tok, which I’ll use as a shorthand for similar accounts. LOTT has 100s of 1000s of followers across various platforms: Twitter, Instagram, TikTok. They basically put out a hit on someone, call them a groomer or whatever, name their handle on a platform. The LOTT followers on that platform spring into attack.

Disclaimer: I know very little about anything I’m about to talk about, including the dynamics of “brigading”, the nitty gritty of ActivityPub federation, and game theory. I’m just going to go step by step, slowly, and ask people to correct me along the way.

Ok, so round one: LOTT on Threads calls out a target, probably on mastodon.social. The LOTT minions, mostly on Threads, but maybe some strays scattered around the fediverse, descend on their latest victim. Moderation teams are overwhelmed trying to take it all down, but eventually they do. It subsides and hopefully the victim is ok. What happens next?

Enter Threads. So far it’s not federated, but it does have LOTT, and there’s no indication that it’s going to take them down. Fast forward a couple months. Threads federates. Many instances block them, but a lot of vulnerable people are not on those instances. Now, thousands of LOTT followers on Threads are able to descend on anyone on the Threads-federated instances.

So far, the Fediverse has been a relatively safe haven from this kind of stuff. Largely because there just aren’t enough LOTT sleeper agents here that siccing them on someone here would have the same powerful effect as on those other platforms.

@dansup lol it’s true, I can see “HOA” rapidly getting coopted… just like Karen 😏

Two hyperboles don't make a normal bole.

This is super subjective, but in all the previous Twitter influxes, I don't feel like I've seen the fediverse this positive and welcoming, and determined to suppress its worst tendencies.

Volunteering to adopt new users who are lost or confused. Meaning I’ll recommend people to follow, and answer questions. I’ll delete this when I’ve reached my capacity, but feel free to boost or copy paste to your own accounts.

@inthehands that sounded more dramatic than I intended

@inthehands Yeah, I don’t have that maturity thing. Just the pain. :-/

I wonder if this is the appeal of generative AI for other people: it looks like the fantasy of your words or images just tumbling out (even though that’s not what it is at all)

Me: I hate the way we talk about “content” like it’s some kind of fungible substance
Also me: I wish I could just plug something into my brain and the creative stuff would come out

@blakereid Didn’t everyone on Twitter love and hate it?

#BlackMastodon: What do you tell a Black person thinking of signing up here? (Assume it's someone you like)

@chucker @thollief @inthehands @shauna I’m still confused when people are adamant that stuff like this has to be done at the server level and is necessarily a compromise against freedom from centralization and surveillance. Server-side may be more efficient, but who cares?

@inthehands @healthstatsdude @doctorjaymarie @MikeyMcFilms Shame about grandma but you do get a great band! https://youtu.be/ypHbgrijYVo