cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/6853479
mastodon.art has decided to suspend firefish.social from their instance due to issues with its administrator. The administrator of firefish.social was found to be boosting posts from a known harasser on another instance. mastodon.art takes a firm stance against racism and suspending full instances in these situations is part of their policy as a safe space. The known harasser has a history of using slurs, harassment, and editing screenshots to spread misinformation. However, the administrator of firefish.social has now forged a screenshot to paint mastodon.art in a negative light.
I spent way more time than was warranted digging into this completely petty drama.
Eris seems to have been widely blocked and defederated for using the word ‘based’ and for thinking ubuntu.buzz was about linux. I’m not sure what kind of perspective makes that a priority, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be one based in compassion or world experience. Half the people I’ve met who use the word ‘based’ have nothing to do with 4chan, they’re just young. The first time I heard it was in reference to Mark Bunker during the Scientology protests in 08. Which, while certainly connected to 4chan, I don’t think can really be cast in the same light as all the Gamergate crap and everything that came after.
Defederation is an important feature, and people should be able to defederate from whoever they want. What isn’t okay, though, is people going out of their way to propagate pettiness as much as humanly possible. Eris seems a little rough around the edges, but I also get the impression that the folks interacting with her in all the overly dramatic nonsense I just read are not acting in remotely good faith. They resemble a twitter mob looking for somebody to hate on, taking zero interest in understanding or nuance. No thanks.
I thought the whole based/cringe thing was just zoomer slang?
Based started on 4chan. People stole memes from 4chan, where it spread and became Zoomer slang.
Cringe I think has a similar but slightly different etymology; I don’t know if it necessarily came from 4chan or if it came from Reddit.
I’m pretty sure it started with Lil B “Thank You Based God”.
Lil B was an underground rapper with… varying levels of quality (at least at the time). His thing was calling himself “Based God” as people were calling him “based” as a negative (presumably to mean he was dumb), but thanks to his music and understanding internet culture and turning it in his favour, he managed to turn “based” from something that was negative to a positive.
Then 4chan got ahold of it for Donald Trump’s election and that word has never recovered.
Go figure. 4chan was pretty based 10 years ago.
4chan was never based.
Half the people I’ve met who use the word ‘based’ have nothing to do with 4chan, they’re just young. The first time I heard it was in reference to Mark Bunker during the Scientology protests in 08. Which, while certainly connected to 4chan, I don’t think can really be cast in the same light as all the Gamergate crap and everything that came after.
Also probably important to note that even being connected to 4chan isn’t always a bad thing. The web (particularly youtubers) have made 4chan as a whole to be some boogeyman website full of hackers and nazis, but it’s a loosely connected web of forums (known as boards), many of which don’t have anything to do with another apart from being anonymous. It’s kind of like lemmy in that regard. I’ve browsed it in my time, and while it is definitely quite a toxic site, most if not all the toxicity originates from a select dozen-or-so boards, and only 3 or 4 of them are even popular (b, pol, r9k, x). Hell, if you go right now to /a/, you’ll probably just see a bunch of weebs discussing anime like any other forum.
note: this isn’t to say 4chan is safe like beehaw. The whole culture of the site is very archaic and a lot of people on there are still there saying slurs and being generally offensive, but when you stay away from hellholes like /b/ or /pol/, I’ve seen worse on reddit.
If some stranger on the street told me they used 4chan, without specifying what board, I mean I might be suspicious of which boards they’re using (depending on context clues) but it’s not a buzzword that translates to “white supremacist”
/vp/ used to be really good at good Pokemon info back in the Black/White days.
That said - I haven’t been back in quite a while, but even back then you did occasionally see folks who obviously were from /b/ or /pol/ posting. I’m sure it’s probably gotten worse over the years, as people start growing out of 4chan…
I agree. Not all these forums are about the same content nor do they all involve the nazi stuff.
I almost thought I had written your comment and completely forgot about it. No, I just almost made the exact comment and want that hour of my life back.
If there was some over the top racist rant, I sure didn’t see it. And the admin pushing for the defederation sounds so bizarre. Bizarre is the best word I could come up with because “petty” makes me think it was like high school politics. This is closer to a grade school sandbox argument.
The worst I saw was “defedfags” and it was used in a way that was meant to highlight how they never said anything offensive. Like saying, “If you thought what I said before was offensive, let’s see how you respond to something intended to be negative.”
The crazy thing is that the decision is being made because the admin just liked a post. It’s not even because of the post content - which has nothing controversial and appeared maybe 8 times in my Lemmy/kbin feed yesterday.
Editing to add that this is the article: https://kbin.social/search?q=wakeup+call
I don’t even see who posted an article in my feed unless I open up three post and look for it. I upvotes things all the time without knowing who posted them. I’m all about aggressively defending safe places and I don’t think they were out of line to defed, but I agree that this whole thing seems awfully overblown from what I’ve seen. The users deserve an explanation of the defed and why and the story should’ve ended there.
Generally, if someone’s being a total asshole so severely that they have to be yeeted with several thousand other unaware bystanders, I expect to see a bunch of examples within the first… 2, maybe 3, links.
If someone can point me to a concise list of examples (actual data), I find it more disturbing that an admin on another server can yeet my account because they make noise on a discord server.I mean, yes, federating is a feature, but why even offer the ability to enroll users? Maybe for a group of friends, or something, but just rando users is nothing but a liability to everyone involved.
Something I haven’t seen mentioned is that ubuntubuzz.com is about the Linux distro, and it’s the first hit for “Ubuntu buzz”. I’d definitely interpret ubuntu.buzz to be about Linux, at least if I didn’t check the about page.
Is it just me or is mastodon.art the source of almost all of the drama on the fediverse?
I think it’s the admin of mastodon.art the source of almost all the drama. Even the admin of the server where I am had issues with that admin and blocked her.
@donuts I recently had a short conversation with someone from mastodon.art. They denied the GIMP devs an account on their server, because GIMP is a slur word. And they made a public announcement of this fact. Looks like the moderation/administration people are assholes, if they act and communicate like that. This community is new to me and all I know is about this GIMP announcement and this new drama.
For those who don’t know: GNU Image Manipulation Program.
@shnizmuffin For those who know less/more, original name was General Image Manipulation Program, before it got renamed.
Ah, that goes farther back than I thought. I didn’t need GIMP until CS3 reached EOL.
For an extra bit of trivia, GTK, the GUI library that later became the basis of GNOME and lots of programs, comes from GIMP ToolKit.
It’s been switched around in later times, with GIMP using GTK now instead of the other way around, but GIMP is still essentially the forefather of all GNOME and related UIs.
STRAIGHT TO JAIL!!!
There’s an amazing amount of conversation about how this person is supposedly a racist with no evidence to support it. Am I missing something?
I got around 5 links deep for each of the links in the admin’s post, and fuck if I know. There was an argumentative user, but they were articulate and thoughtful. Not dropping slurs or wasting space nonsense, but still bordering on “edgy”. The person pushing the defederation appeared to be bullying them and on a power trip.
It was embarrassing. That’s all I took away. (My opinion can change if someone digs through the shitpiles of nothingness to pull up some actual naughty posts, but that’s not going to be me.)
The admin of mastodon.art is terrible and a huge, huge troll - just ignore them and move on lol
Thread where calckey dev responds. https://firefish.social/notes/9hp49vhkce098zn8
what was wrong in boosting that post? was that article bad or something?
article was fine, mastodon.art’s mod didn’t like the person who originally posted it
i just wonder how one could possibly know whether that person was racist before boosting it. i mean, sometimes we all see stuff and repost or boost it without making a whole profile check on that person right?
I think it’s supposed to be “”“common sense”“” that disqordia is an iffy server that members of polite fedi shouldn’t interact with
What other art focused Masto instances do people recommend? .art seems to get involved in a lot of drama and I’m getting tired of it.
I would also like to know.
I’m trying out socel.net if you’re still looking? They say it’s animation focused but all visual art is welcomed. I only just joined so idk a whole lot about it though, or if it’s any better in terms of drama.
Oh wow that looks like it might be perfect thanks so much! I just switched to a random other instance but luckily switching instances on Mastodon is easy. Especially since I don’t post there much. Ill move there now, thanks again!
I’m willing to go out on a limb and include furry instances provided there’s enough of a sfw community since a lot of my art could be considered that, but I’d prefer a decently active general art community if possible.
Wow - bit overblown all in all. While it sounds like the quinoa guy is kinda a jerk, I’m not seeing any proof of racism on his part. He just boosted a legitimate news article (the Fediverse servers being seized that popped up yesterday) posted by this Eris character, who had been flagged as a racist troll in the past. This isn’t confirmed or denied in the various posts aside from a profile link on thebadplace.com - which has no information aside from a few racist tags on that profile (can’t tell who the profile is for).
This sounds more like the admins got snippy at each other in off-site discord drama and decided to take their toys and go home. Interesting for the /popcorn, but hey, if mastodon.art doesn’t wanna play with firefish, that’s their decision, regardless of the reasoning, end of story.
This is why I prefer using my own instance- I don’t want these federation choices made for me by people like this.
Same!
I don’t get it why tge commenters are upsetti of the way .art admin cleans their house.
If they smell anything fishy, it’s their duty to protect their instance’s users. It’s what is promised for joining .art.
There’s a reson it’s such a humongous instance. Because the admin is doing a stelar job.
It’s not to my taste, that’s why I’m on another instance. But my lord, leave people be.
If the admin is doing such a poor job, the instance will collapse, and people will simply migrate.
To me it looks like fragile egos are all around, and somehow get “offended” when defederation happens.
Also, GIMP is both a slur and a shitty graphics software. I’d personally block it as well.
How are people starting drama over a FOSS program that has been around for 25 years? Gimp is free, open-source, and good software. People starting drama over that are looking for trouble.
Why is everyone calling it drama. How difficult it is to understand a dumb rule that says “no slurs”?
“Gimp” is literally a slur. The makers were aware of it and did for the lulz. Now they’re denied an account in an incredibly moderated instance because the name is a slur and everyone’s “why the drama11??11”
I think you have a different view on the project from reality. According to Wikipedia, the name “The Gimp” is a Pulp Fiction reference. The people who came up with the name “The Gimp” don’t even work on Gimp anymore. They’re CEO and CTO of the company developing CockroachDB. To imply that the volunteers running Gimp’s social media are some slur-crazy edgelords is counter productive.
I don’t think any people think of the slur when talking about the project, and I think this is a bunch of Twitter drama nonsense. If you want to change it, then join the project and change it, don’t harass volunteers.
A slur is a slur, no matter how you dress it.
If I made a program named “Fag*ot”, I’m sure, nobody cared about my story how it’s just a bunch of sticks.
If you want to change it, then join the project and change it
That’s not how it works. But there’s an effort to fork the program and rename it.
don’t harass volunteers
The ‘harassment’: “can we join your instance?” - “no, your program name is a slur”.
Wait since when is it a slur, and for what? I’ve only heard it refer to a particular role in a BDSM context
You’re one google “is gimp a slur” away from the information you seek.
Defederation is one of the big issues fediverse social media will face, now is getting more population and will be more in the future
It’s not an issue, it’s an intentional and important feature.
Don’t want to be defederated? Don’t let chuds and bigots on your instance. It’s pretty simple.
I think the current discussion is a good example showing that it’s not as black and white, and definitely not easy, as you make it out to be.
Don’t want to be defederated? Don’t let chuds and bigots on your instance. It’s pretty simple.
While this is the main reason for defederation, I think it’s important to recognize that humans are going to human and as of such you’re going to have defederation over extremely petty issues. In human history we’ve literally started wars over petty issues, costing countless lives - defederating is small stakes in comparison.
With that being said I agree with other posters that defederation is a tool. Just like any other tool it will be used in ways not everyone expects. A hammer can be used as a can opener if you really want. Or as art. Or in an elaborate machine. Tools may be designed for a purpose, but humans are creative and you can’t enforce that tools are only used in certain ways.
Defederation is an important tool to protect communities. It helps prevent the Fediverse from being overrun with bad actors.
Defederation is a feature, not an issue. Bigots, racists, etc can be confined to servers that allow that behaviour without polluting friendly servers with their content.
Too true, but there’s less evidence that this is confining bigots and more that the mastodon.art admin was looking for an excuse, no matter how tenuous.
I do think defederation is an important tool for the many pedophile, harassment or extremism oriented instances there are because of the fediverse’s decentralized nature. But it is an extreme action, and I don’t see it as a good immediate recourse when there’s issues with an admin or some users.
How is it an issue to be faced? It’s an advantage of how the fediverse is built.
It can force those who disagree with defederating to find a new instance that has access to all the communities they want. It also makes onboarding new people significantly more complicated, as their choice of instance will drastically influence their feed.
To be clear, I’m not arguing against defederation, just pointing out that it causes issues that need dealt with.
those aren’t issues, they’re features.
your instance should be curated in a way you agree with. new users should always understand what they’re signing up for.
new users should always understand what they’re signing up for.
I agree that defederation is a feature, but this in specific is a contradiction against what is the normal “it doesn’t matter what instance you sign up for” that gets said whenever discussion about onboarding new users for Lemmy, Mastodon, etc comes up.
I run my own instances for both (partly to avoid this, and also because I quite enjoy self-hosting) but if I didn’t and wanted to get my friends onto the Fediverse, this would be something I’d have to take into consideration for them as I couldn’t expect them to possibly understand it.
In reality, its more like “It doesn’t matter what instance you sign up for… unless there is someone/a community you want to follow on instance X which is defederated by instance Y and the only way around it is to either create multiple accounts (which most non-tech oriented people aren’t going to want to do) or pick a different instance as your main instance and manually move everything over since there are no migration tools for the most part”.
In my opinion this is probably the number one reason why the Fediverse will never be mainstream, for better or for worse (though I’d be incredibly happy to be wrong about this).
Again, I think defederation is a tool that needs to be present on the Fediverse for pretty obvious reasons but I do think that it is also a double edged sword.
Things change over time.
For example - I want to see the broadest possible choice of content in my feed. I want to be able to interact with anywhere that’s not outright hateful and/or malicious. So when I was choosing an instance, finding a permissive (but not too permissive!) admin was important to me.
But when Threads started making waves and the fedipact started becoming a thing that people were discussing, things changed out of left field.
I still wanted to federate with Threads. I think fears of EEE are overblown; Facebook has to comply with the Digital Markets Act and guarantee third-party interoperability. EEE on the fediverse runs counter to EU law. Additionally, most of my friends are folks who don’t “get” the fediverse; I tried coaxing my fiance onto Mastodon and she lasted 1 day before going back to birdsite. She uses Threads actively now, and I’d love to be able to see her posts and interact with her without needing to sign up for Threads myself.
I had hoped that the semi-permissive admins I’ve found would tolerate it, but a lot of them decided to draw the line and join the fedipact (including my Mastodon admin).
Which now sucks - it feels like a bunch of bullies are trying to use intimidation to tell me where I can and can’t post. By threatening to defederate everywhere that’s not in the fedipact, there’s this feeling where now I can’t join a server that curates the way I want because if I do, I’ll be cut off from the rest of the fediverse. If I run my own server, there’s a good chance these other instances will use bots to catch that my server federates with Threads and pre-emptively defederate me.
Defederation is used as a weapon and a way to bully other instances, which I really don’t like. I understand the need for defederation as a tool but it sucks seeing how easily it’s abused, and how you really can’t trust that admins of a server you join won’t be intimidated into compliance by these fedipact bullies.
So now, if I want to like my fiance’s posts… I basically have to join Threads and help Zuck directly, or have an account elsewhere that basically can only federate with Threads. Thanks, fedipact.
This is what kept me off fediverse for a while. Reading about another incident like this.
If your admins are adults about things and don’t overreact to every little thing, then that’s great. But sadly not everyone is mature like that.
Mastodon.art has 29k users, so it’s not nothing, I suppose
