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I'm hearing some conflicting things about on-platform #Racism and I'm hoping to get a more comprehensive picture.
Black Users Only: Why do you still use Mastodon? Would you recommend it to a Black friend and if so, are there resources to help them safely navigate? If you're on your way out, would you feel comfortable sharing where, so I can share? Mostly folks exiting Bsky
Hesitant to ask for free labor and will not be offended if you choose to respond just with hashtags to follow.
Thank you.
The biggest problem is simply because there aren't enough Black people here. A related problem is that there is a kind of elitism that makes this unlikely to change. eg. "it's a good thing only nerds know how to use this place, wouldn't it be awful if the rabble showed up" type sentiments.
1/
The lack of a critical mass on Black people on the fediverse is related to other problems: there aren't a lot of people who work in trades, people who are poor, people who aren't university educated etc. What we have is a college town. And like many college towns it very tolerant and nice ... but there are also huge blind spots, and gaps.
And this isn't something that can be fixed by being "nice" or "mindful" or whatever. 2/
If we want open social media to be a meeting place for people of all class backgrounds, races, religions, and from all over the world that means it'd need to be "popular" ... it'd need to be something that could work for people without a desktop computer who mostly use the internet on their phone.
It'd need to be free for most users and easy to get started. Consider how threads and blueSky have outpaced the fedi mostly due to their focus on these use cases. 3/
Of course those corporate walled gardens also have help that we simply can't afford. They have the backing of media. Media has a lot of power in moving people to platforms.
The closest thing the fedi has to a corporate promotional face is "Mastodon" the app, and software development group. I don't feel that this group really cares about serving "the rabble" the vision of a 20-something posting about nail art from her home in the Bronx isn't part of their vision.
4/
A lot of people like that the fedi is a leafy suburb, a sleepy college town. They don't want to have the latest "tea" about rappers falling out on here. They can hardly tolerate people talking about sports.
And to me, this is just so short-sighted and sad. Twitter had many flaws but one of its strengths was that all kinds of people participated and this made it special. Twitter was better than the fedi at diversity. 5/
In the end I don't know what to do about it.
I hope that with time people will keep ending up here as walled gardens fail. A few more people showed up with the migration from X. Eventually, threads and BlueSky will fall apart because that's market model for such places. And people will move here.
Can we at least pretend like we want them to join us? That's all I ask.
6/6
@futurebird @futurebird Thank you So much! This is far more comprehensive than I hoped for and what you're saying makes a lot of sense even from what I can observe.
I'm unhappy being in such an isolationist environment. I'm kind of a background chimera, jobs ranging from sex worker to tech writer, but I'm extremely frustrated that as a white, trans, disabled person I am safe-ish here, (Bsky/etc. are kind of a nightmare), but other people are really not.
Not sure of the right thing to do.
I think with segregated spaces a first step to just recognize that the segregation exists. Then think about who benefits from it? How do elitist spaces signal "not for you!" to some people? How do these spaces hide themselves?
Think about what facebook started out as: a kind of dating scheme for Harvard students ONLY. Ironically it was capitalist avarice that lead it to expand.
I'm certain you can find old facebook posts saying "there goes the neighborhood"
And if the fedi ever does get over this bump how loud will the cries of "there goes the neighborhood" be here?
If we are truly classy they will not be loud at all, but frankly I don't have a lot of confidence.
At least such an expansion won't come from pure greed to run up the numbers.
But then maybe it won't come at all. If most people don't *want* this to be a place for everyone it won't ever be a place for everyone.
I have the same feelings about the Free Software cultures I hang out it. As one of the few working class, not university educated programmers it's very clear that there is a pre-thought consensus about simple things like labour, and getting people to do work. A contribution that is easy for a well heeled college grad is a cruel request on a single parent living day to day.
Yet we need diversity, the lack of it eats at our creativity.
@doctormo @futurebird @VaylLarkinPoet
having been poor most of my life, having chosen linux and FOSS because I couldn't afford anything else, and yet, always having felt like most of software engineering culture (FOSS and otherwise) either barely tolerates poor people, fears poor people might scare off Vile Capitalists, or just openly hates poor people, I have many thoughts along these lines, but in this essay I will not.
@llewelly @doctormo @futurebird @VaylLarkinPoet yeah :-(
Having worked for a good while at a public library in an area with many very poor people made me feel someone REALLY needs to empower low income people regarding technology. I feel like librarians are one of the few groups with an outlet to do that currently, and it’s often not particularly supported.
@swacknificent @llewelly @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet
So many of the "empowering" things people think of are time consuming.
I wonder sometimes if there isn't more empowerment in access to better quality tools and services. Up-to-date laptops with good operating systems. Fast consistent internet.
Trying to use the internet on a cheap machine is a worse hell than many tech people suspect because we NEVER expose ourselves to that nonsense.
Not saying this is the only factor.
@futurebird @swacknificent @llewelly @VaylLarkinPoet
When you look at who foss benefits first. It's technophilics and mega corporations. Getting the tools into the hands of everyone else means understanding, and more importantly caring to understand, what those people actually want and need.
We can't actually do that properly if the communities are thin and exclusive. We can't do that at all if our economics are thin and privileged. A lot of this comes out of assumptions. Social and economic.
@futurebird @llewelly @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet
Yes. Sadly, the only ppl with the skills to get FOSS systems working on cheap equipment are technical experts, & you only become a technical expert by having access to a variety of systems with good internet access so you can experiment and learn.
Once I went to a UX webinar where the presenter said if we really cared about all our users, we would test our systems on old and low end systems, and that really stuck with me.
@swacknificent @llewelly @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet
It's exactly like cooking healthy food without spending a lot of money. Oh it's possible. It can be done!
But you need to invest a lot of time.
And when people are poor they don't have time. Not to install some alternate software, or to do some set up to make cheap equipment useable, or to peel potatoes.
So it's either expensive not so junky food, or cheap junk food that isn't good for you.
@futurebird @llewelly @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet yeah, apt comparison.
That's true in the USA, not everywhere.
Which proves that it's a societal choice, which means that caving to this social choice may not be the best politics.
While obviously any attempt at doing any politics in that regard should take into account the actual difficulties encountered by actual people...
@futurebird @swacknificent @llewelly @VaylLarkinPoet
This is where *local* community can help.
Building that also takes time, but it's really really important. I found as people wealthed out of their situation they either became isolated (cars, moving home, etc) or made a focused effort to help others around them and stay in the community.
I would say to technology folk: look around your local community and give generously your time'n'money to help people get themselves a better situation.
"wealthed out"!
“Hard to beat a richer person’s BATNA" I often think to myself. "Best Alternative To Negotiated Agreement", I learned it in an ecological politics class, it’s really useful to remember when negotiating… @doctormo @futurebird @swacknificent @llewelly @VaylLarkinPoet
@clew @doctormo @futurebird @llewelly @VaylLarkinPoet interesting, I was not familiar with that term. I see it’s from Getting to Yes, which was very popular book in a library dept. where I worked that I always meant to read, haha.
@doctormo @futurebird @swacknificent @llewelly @VaylLarkinPoet Computer and network access is only one factor. I've installed Linux OS on many an old laptop, and given to refugees and some poor people. But still, anyone with even a little bit of money will buy a many times more expensive Windows computer, because that's what's on the billboard. That's where he wants to get. And when he opens Windows, the first thing he sees are more ads, more incentives to buy something.
@swacknificent
You don't need good internet connection for tech stuff. Documentation is plain text, markdown or html. I have always worked on a very crappy hardware, outdated on the day I bought it. Software doesn't require good setup.
@licho @swacknificent @llewelly @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet
If you have the time you don't "need" it. This is a trade off.
@futurebird @licho @llewelly @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet ppl also usually need some base of knowledge. Software documentation is going to be pretty opaque, or lacking the full background information required, to a lot of folks.
@futurebird
Time you mean time needed to read the docs? Time to learn things? In the last 4 years I've been doing majority of my programming on a low-end Android phone over juice ssh and mosh because I've been extremely low on time having two people under my care. Vim is surprisingly awesome on phones. The keyboard only approach, narrow screen. It works perfectly.
@licho @swacknificent @llewelly @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet
"Time you mean time needed to read the docs? Time to learn things? "
Exactly.
@futurebird
That's why we don't have any life
@licho @futurebird @llewelly @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet ha. But also kind of true. Most people really proficient in technology have spent SO MUCH TIME to get there.
@swacknificent @licho @futurebird @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet
in the era in which I learned my FOSS skills, I watched no tv (still don't watch much, aside a bit of youtube), saw maybe 2-3 films a year, read maybe 5% of the novels/year I had read in my pre-FOSS era, and slept much less. Yes, there were other things going on; college, multiple jobs, homelessness, etc, but even so ...
But I loved it. And I cannot imagine devoting that much time and energy to something I didn't love.
@futurebird @licho @llewelly @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet and time to troubleshoot. I’m not super technical, and the number of times I’ve thought something would be easy to set up but then it consumed all the free time I had available and still wasn’t done has been… disappointing. Also the time to figure out what things you actually need to learn and how you can learn them can be substantial
@swacknificent
Say hello to chronic fatigue syndrome. Insomnia doesn't make it any better.
@licho @futurebird @llewelly @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet I’ve yet to find something insomnia improves, but I’ll report back if I do.
@swacknificent
From my experience, it ruins life :P
@futurebird @licho @swacknificent @llewelly @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet yes, it is, but the thing is, what else can we do? should we all just cave to windows or something? I'm helping some people to use linux, and it's slow going because there are some accessibility problems and so on, but still, anything more than that. I dk what can be. There are computers with linux preinstalled, though those could probably be very expensive and hard to get in certain arias. I use an ancient computer, about 4 gigs of ram, I don't think it's fabricated anymore, but it still works, and I'll keep using it till it wouldn't, just to spite ms and other manufacturers who proffit from the planned obsolescence strategy microsoft is pushing over there with windows 11. I think a law which makes a device user-hackable automatically after it stops getting updates would solve a lot of these issues, btw.
@esoteric_programmer @futurebird @licho @swacknificent @llewelly @VaylLarkinPoet
What I discovered doing this kind of work is just how expensive Linux is. Partly because of lack of focus in projects means there's less working on making deploy' and maint' cheaper and because the costs for a tech head is hidden from them.
I love great teachers because there's a meta genius in inspiring knowledge in other people that's distinct from learning yourself. Same for deploying Foss to the community.
@doctormo @futurebird @licho @swacknificent @llewelly @VaylLarkinPoet yeah, makes sense, but idk, if that person is unfamiliar with the computer or their exposure to it was low, linux would feel pretty much the same as windows when it comes to the learning curve, if cliff isn't a better analogy lol. It of course depends on the distro, for example I don't recommend arch to a beginner anymore, but nor do I recommend ubuntu for obvious reasons. So, nowadays we're using fedora workstation, because while kde may offer a more accessible experience for the time being, gnome is still simpler to use, and fedora workstation was simpler to install for me, and because I had to do it on about three computers already, that factor is important too
@licho @swacknificent @futurebird @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet
for older projects that set their documentation standards a decade or more ago, yes, browsing FOSS tech docs on old computers works great. But for projects of the "discord is documentation" era, it's often bad. Discord itself doesn't work at all on any of my computers, for example.
@llewelly
Yeah, I hate those.
@licho @swacknificent @futurebird @llewelly @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet You might not literally NEED a good internet connection, but it sure does make things a whole lot easier. Downloading an OS image can take a long time on a slow connection. And even though the documentation won't take much to load, it's a real chore to try and search for info when your WiFi keeps dropping out. A bad connection will exacerbate just about any other problem a beginner might have.
@futurebird @swacknificent @llewelly @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet
The Internet is/was supposed to be a communicators medium. It should not require powerful computers to access. All too often websites use power hungry bells and whistles that do not impart any more information than a simple interface would. All too often access requires specialized "apps" rather than a simple web interface.
@the5thColumnist
My favourite example of achieving communication without fanciness is
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/
@futurebird @swacknificent @llewelly @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet
@swacknificent @llewelly @doctormo @futurebird @VaylLarkinPoet
Librarians, particularly big city librarians are heroes in my opinion, I live in Baltimore and the library is a huge resource for low-income people.
@jhall251 @swacknificent @llewelly @doctormo @futurebird @VaylLarkinPoet Having been through the Rob Ford years in Toronto, though, SAYING something is for poor people is not the way to go. We had to tell Ford not-poor people used the library (including services he thought were just for poor people) in order to save our libraries. Because we all do use it.
When it's for everyone, truly, that's when it works. That's when it gets protected and funded.
@eyrea @jhall251 @swacknificent @llewelly @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet
I have more in common with every "poor" person than these millionaires. And so do all of you.
In terms of scale we are the same size effectively.
@futurebird @jhall251 @swacknificent @llewelly @doctormo @VaylLarkinPoet Exactly. You have to be very, very rich indeed to be able to ignore a public library system and not feel the absence of its benefits.
I joke all my property taxes go to the library, compared to how much I use it. It's amazing how many people have been taught not to use public services, when really it would be a great benefit to them.
@jhall251 @llewelly @doctormo @futurebird @VaylLarkinPoet
that’s where I used to work! Those people are truly putting in the work. You can really see how needed that service is working at Pratt. Though also you often get treated terribly :-(
@swacknificent @llewelly @doctormo @futurebird @VaylLarkinPoet
Really? I've almost always found the librarians at Central to be very helpful and quite willing to go looking for things and giving me advice etc.
@jhall251 @llewelly @doctormo @futurebird @VaylLarkinPoet
I realized I never responded, sry! Central has some very knowledgeable, helpful staff. When I was there, some management was quite unsupportive of them. Public librarians also get lots of sexual harassment, mistreatment from frustrated or unstable patrons, low pay, disrespect from various jerks, book challengers, etc. Can be v. demoralizing.
@futurebird Thanks a lot for taking the time for such a thorough explanation!
My hopes for when(ever) the Fedi gets over the diversity bump aren’t terribly high. We had a storm of “there goes the neighborhood” greeting each big migration from Twitter.
@futurebird @VaylLarkinPoet as technology the Fedi is fairly neutral. As communities we tend to congregate with shared interests and ethos. The moderators are thoughtful and responsible. All good and welcoming.
But as an individual, I am rabid about weeding my feed. Absolutely ruthless. I'm guessing that's true for all of us. We get to pick our family here.
@futurebird @VaylLarkinPoet White people found a thread where I told them "chickens are where eggs come from, A lot of food comes from bushes and trees"
People have been screaming at me for two straight days 
@futurebird @VaylLarkinPoet
Iirc there were plenty of "there goes the neighborhood" posts around the first Twitter Exodus before threads and blue sky. Understandable imo.
I had written about this earlier, from a #GlobalSouth perspective. My point was that the present #Fediverse most likely does not want this to be a place for everyone.
https://union.place/@feralthoughts/113195121873509993
https://union.place/@feralthoughts/113200826049087591
@futurebird @VaylLarkinPoet the one omission in your list, and a criticism I saw a lot in the first big mastodon wave 2 years ago was, that a lot of POC activists got frustrated with mastodon, complaining about a lack of reach.
This is interesting, since that is the one thing, where I don't see any chance for change within mastodon.
Mastodon doesn't want to amplify virality of posts, viral posts need to fight against the friction of mastodon.
Mastodon wants to be a tool for neighborhoods .
@futurebird @VaylLarkinPoet meaning, I believe mastodon can welcome a lot of different groups, but if your expectation of social media is, that you can use it promote your cause to an outgroup and not to network and organize within your interest groups, it will never work for you.
@futurebird @VaylLarkinPoet I am sure you can find the same tweets for Twitter as well. All you described was true for Twitter before the popstars joined as well. It was very white, very techy and very upper middle class, and didn't even come with its own mobile app.
The one difference is, mastodon even failed to capture the journalists, another typical early adopter crowd, making the current population even more homogeneous.
For myself, IRL, after years of kinda blundering along wondering how on earth to de-segregate my existence, what ended up turning the corner was getting into work that involves directly helping people and community building. In those spaces suddenly I'm circulating in and interacting with properly diverse layers of the world around me that I wasn't exposed to before. Community gardening, mental health support groups, the local art scene, activism, this sort of thing.
Changing online spaces is a bit of a different project, but I think it starts at the intersections where there's real focus on supporting people who need it, and less squeamish turning away to more comfy tasks/topics.
@VaylLarkinPoet I could not possibly agree more, @futurebird - "We", as in the #fediverse, can't both be about the freeedaaaaahm from corporate dominance over all our lives, and also at the same time a gatekept garden, im- or explicitily only letting The Right Ones
in. If everybody doesn't have freedom, nobody does - then it's just privilege.
@jwcph For me it's not about the "right people," just about behaviour. I'd be thrilled to have more posts here about rappers, sports, trades, or any other topic.
I don't want a leafy suburb, but I also don't want to be a faceless object in someone else's narcissistic quest for wealth and fame.
On the commercial sites, I got sick of being monetised as part of some influencer's follower count, or exploited as part of some political actor's disinformation campaign.
@david_megginson @VaylLarkinPoet @futurebird Here's the thing, though: Those problems overwhelmingly stem from the commercial algorithm, which the #fediverse doesn't have. It's no reason for keeping anyone out - especially since moderation by user preference is actually possible here; let's say someone tries to be an influencer here & engages in spammy behavior, then server mods are going to start blocking that account to protect their users & problem solved. It's no reason for elitism.
@jwcph Exactly! I don't want to keep anyone out (except for abuse or hate speech), but I feel free to celebrate that the architecture of the fediverse makes it difficult for dominant players to emerge, so that the "wealth" of attention ends up less unevenly distributed.
That makes us unattractive for influencers, trolls, marketers, celebrities and others who want only to go "go viral" and have a big audience rather than real conversations.
@jwcph @VaylLarkinPoet @futurebird And the thing about gatekeeping is it gets tighter and tighter.
@futurebird @VaylLarkinPoet IMO a lot of the problem is self-correcting, but takes time. A large portion of the new arrivals here are not HOA-minded, don't balk at people talking about sports or celebs or whatever they like. But active pushback against the Old Guard is slower.
Fortunately, every time capitalist social media fucks up, more folks migrate, and lots of them stick. Eventually the bad attitudes will be a cringe minority. But it'd be nice if we make that happen sooner vs later.