@timnitGebru or, you know, filled with *more* racists since there sure as heck aren't as many Black folks as on other platforms.

@timnitGebru As a long time wypipo, I never stop being surprised when my fellow Caucasians are like, "why, there's no racism in my church/temple/school/company/club/university/group! maybe other places ---- but not here!"

It's so baked into everything that we've trained ourselves not to see it

@timnitGebru People like to pretend there aren’t more Black and Brown folks because of the lack of profile for Mastodon.

As if most bigots are in this space are going to broadcast themselves as such.

@timnitGebru Every time someone mentions that some frothing asshole racist, or some snarky crypto-fascist, or some white nationalist came for them, the comments always seem to be full of "well-meaning" people asking pointed questions about moderation with the extremely unsubtle insinuation that it's the victim's fault. Every time I see this. It's like clockwork.

@timnitGebru just reality

@timnitGebru
Oh just like anywhere else we do have a problem with racism at Mastodon, that's for sure and anyone saying it isn't so is fooling only themselves.
Wishing it wasn't so and denying it doesn't make it go away.

@timnitGebru most of the bad actors I've seen are from dot social.

@timnitGebru I got a strike for “Holocaust inversion” by stating the facts about a particular colonizer’s parallels. It’s as filtered and biased as what they aim to replace.

@timnitGebru I don't believe there is a (network/data/communication) protocol that only "good people" can use, despite the existing RFC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit).

I believe there's a problem, so I do think we should address it, but it's not going to be by switching to a different protocol (or brand for the same protocol).

I reject centralized moderation -- private or governmental, but then again I'm not at much risk of getting discriminatory messages/actions.

@timnitGebru @gerrymcgovern

The entire fedi when someone talks about racism or sexism:

@timnitGebru Its just like everywhere else because it's the internet. But often people who praise themselves for being liberal use that as a cover to excuse themselves from evaluating their own behavior. It is always someone else who is offensive or racists but never themselves.

@timnitGebru

IIRC the mastodon development team said they changed their minds and quote boost (or however we call it) was now on the roadmap. That was sort of one year ago, though, and we haven't seen it yet.