i think i'm starting to get mastodon content moderation

[solarbird]

I think I'm starting to get it

you can join a site that doesn't allow fascists locally

and blocks sites that do allow fascists on their instances if they show up in your federation feed (which is never "the world," it's based on who site users follow)

and what you end up with is

twitter without fascists :D

i mean yeah somebody might start a new site so you need the administrators to do what's needed, but it's way more doable.

you can even run that site yourself.

(She said, blocking a third fascist site)

(See the thing is fascists group up on instances in this kind of environment because they have to so mostly if you see a fascist and it's not a brand new account, it's probably a fascist site so you block a LOT at ONCE and it's very satisfying)

(3 for 3 so far :D )

ETA: OH MY GODS I JUST GOT THE OTHER PART

You know the nazi bar phenomenon, right? Where if you run a bar you let in zero (0) nazis even if they're quiet and polite because they will bring more nazis next time and eventually force everyone else out and it becomes a nazi bar. It's how they take over and ruin spaces and is why you tolerate exactly zero (0) nazis.

That's what happens at mastodon... except you can then lock them up in their own bar and out of everywhere else.

Mastodon's architecture lets you use the nazi bar phenomenon _against nazis_. :D

Comments

[maellenkleth]

That sounds interesting: denazification (of the non-nazi spaces, at least) being inherent to functionality.

[solarbird]

It's kinda neat. I'm starting to appreciate this thing, ngl.

[dewline]

Seems like a very positive selling point for Mastodon. I'm not sure about spreading myself ever-thinner in terms of internet presence yet, though.

[talkswithwind]

Yeah, fascism-tolerance was one of the first major Fediverse partitions. I came over in a 2017 wave, which is about when the instance-block was created. So handy.

[kathmandu]

Well, that sounds auspicious.

[merelydovely]

Excellent!

I'm thinking very vaguely about joining Mastodon, but maybe not until I know enough to start my own server. Any resources that you found particularly helpful?

[solarbird]

joinmastodon.org has very detailed instructions on setting up an instance. It walks you through it and is mostly decent but! there are three issues (with 3.5.3):

1: The build instructions don't tell you that you HAVE TO issue the suggested command at the end of gem installs. They skip right over it. DON'T.

2: The build instructions say you don't have to set up a DB password and can use local auth for simplicity. LIES! The configuration script doesn't let you do that. Easiest thing to do is set up a password.

3: The certbot command they tell you to run to get a mastodon certificate won't run if you don't already have certs, and creates a chicken-and-egg problem. Here's how to get around it, just run this one instead:

certbot certonly --standalone -d [yourdomain]

[merelydovely]

Thanks so much!

[sistawendy]

Mastodon's architecture lets you use the nazi bar phenomenon _against nazis_.

[Chef's kiss]!