Political Extremism And The Exploitation Of Codes Of Conduct

As Someone Who Used To Use Mastodon

This isn’t an issue that’s unique to Comicsgate, but it’s more symptomatic of the issue of political extremism of Youtube more generally. I’m fairly sure I was kicked off this one Mastodon instance under false pretenses, and yet because of the way Mastodon does their code of conduct, this makes it extremely easy to exploit. In this way, it has more in common with platforms like Youtube and Twitter than it does the Fediverse.

The thing about extremist groups, is often they will do things like exploit DMCA and other codes of conduct in order to get channels / profiles taken down. On Youtube there is an appeal function, but there isn’t presently anything like this on Mastodon. But Mastodon opened up this precedent by the fact that they ban people from their instances on a drop of a hat, without any kind of real due process. And because of the way their “Suspension Notification” is sent: even if someone were only advertising, the message would still be the same: “Kicked for transphobia, racism, and ” ad infinitum.

So not only do people who possibly may not have even broken any kind of rule have their profiles taken down, but it’s always “because Transphobia” even if I myself happen to be a trans woman. Politicised transness is one of the problems currently plaguing the left at the moment anyway.

And that’s part of the problem of why it’s especially a good idea to have an appeal function, in case of falsely exploiting codes of conduct. Although given the personal history of this one instance admin, it is possible he wanted me gone anyway because of EU mandates.

My Issue With Anarcho-Communists More Specifically

My issue with anarcho-communists, because of their tendency to put their constituents inside of an ideological bubble, it’s nearly impossible to actually get educated properly about issues, because they deem anyone finding information outside of their paramount to becoming far right.

Anarcho-Communists, took a very good practice about social justice, and basically turned it on its head.

For example, you might not have noticed, but it’s nearly impossible to actually get educated properly about issues when surrounded by those that have basically surrounded themselves by the cult of personality in which Breadtube is an extremely small part of.

In fact, one cannot even become educated about Gamergate or Comicsgate to prime yourself against falling into such circles. And this is a problem, because people need to be actually educated about toxic communities in order to learn how to avoid them, without literally becoming part of the problem by doing the exact opposite extreme.

In some cases, even talking about the issue is basically treated as “talking politics”, when the entire point is to learn what that thing even is.

Idealogical bubbles only makes the problem worse in the long run. And this is part of what makes Mastodon moderation practices so egregious to me.

Mastodon is a lot of people’s introduction to the Fediverse to escape the tyrannical practices of Twitter. And yet generally it’s not a good representation. Mastodon has basically become the Twitter of the Fediverse honestly. A better representation of what the Fediverse is actually about are through sites like Pleroma, Miskey, Hubzilla, Gnu Social, Peertube, and other places.

I would even recommend Diaspora over Mastodon. For a platform that calls itself Decentralized, it’s only this way in name only because of its moderation practices, and an insistence on a common code of conduct, the tentacles of which have trickled into even software like ruby gem bundlers.

For this reason, I may end up hanging out on other parts of the Fediverse rather than Mastodon, as that part of the Fediverse has burned me way to many times for honest good faith inquisitiveness.

Or simply wanting to be educated about issues. Mastodon unusable as liberal.

Going Forward

If you want to find me, I’ll probably be using a Pleroma instance, though I’m not going to be casually linking my profile. I will however continue to display them on my social media link list.