🧵arguing that we should do away with “privacy level” options for reply posts (in case of Mastodon and Mastodon-like Fediverse platforms which follow that model), to eliminate the ability of racists to hide their abuse of black users behind “mentioned users only” replies.

#Fediverse #Mastodon #PostPrivacy

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To put this differently, only a new post (the original post of a thread) should have the option to select privacy levels. Every single reply in a thread or a sub-thread should simply inherit the privacy level of the original post.

This will cut off the abusers’s ability to create pile ups in reply threads that are invisible to everyone bar the victim and the abusers themselves.

#Fediverse #Mastodon #PostPrivacy

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One technical solution to alleviate this problem would be to force replies to inherit the privacy level of the parent post. If the parent post is “public” or “quiet public”, then the reply also has to be “public” or “quiet public”.

#Fediverse #Mastodon #PostPrivacy

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When the victim mentions publicly that they are facing harassment, other Fedi users respond saying that they don’t see any abusive replies, and blame the victim for being too sensitive, or for not correctly using the moderation tools.

#Fediverse #Mastodon #PostPrivacy

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Basically, an abuser replies with post privacy level set to “followers only” or “mentioned users only”, and tagging only the victim and the abuser’s followers. The followers of the abuser then pile on, with their own abusive replies, all set to “followers only” or “mentioned users only”.

#Fediverse #Mastodon #PostPrivacy

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It is common knowledge that the Fediverse has a huge racism problem. Black users get massively harassed, and are driven off, never to return.

A common mode of harassment is described in this recent post.

https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/@aj/statuses/01K6Z6ZAXY1SB46X6PAFDKM9S9

#Fediverse #Mastodon #PostPrivacy

(continues)

🧵arguing that we should do away with “privacy level” options for reply posts (in case of Mastodon and Mastodon-like Fediverse platforms which follow that model), to eliminate the ability of racists to hide their abuse of black users behind “mentioned users only” replies.

#Fediverse #Mastodon #PostPrivacy

(continues)