Well written piece by @distel about a serious loss to the fediverse: the departure of playvicious.social, the most prominent black-oriented member of the fediverse: http://weirderearth.de/goodbyepv.html

I think there are a few things here to reflect on... critically indeed the way that the fediverse at large participates in racism systemic in our society. Much of this is social and the need for group prioritization of values. And I agree with all that analysis in the post.

Also...

I think it's clear to me that the kinds of border-oriented tooling of allow/deny lists is already struggling to keep up, especially in meeting the needs of those most vulnerable. As the fediverse grows, the problem will grow worse.

On this category is a lot of the research I'm doing... but admittedly at this time it's probably frustrating to hear me say any of that, because what is really needed is code in peoples' hands. I hope I can demonstrate something better...

@cwebber to me the answer is simple, hierarchical block/mute lists with both whitelisting and black listing capability. Mastodon and the fediverse almost got it right by allowing users to rely on their local instance to moderate, but the lack of override ability from the users or the ability for multiple inheretence is the killer.

@freemo @cwebber
"white...", "black..."; interesting choice of language per se.

As a novice user of primarily diaspora and hubzilla, these protocols have been observed (personal observation, not definitive data) signficantly less abusive in content encountered, compared to mastodon and pleroma.

@ourdiaspora

Interesting how? They are standard terms that have been in use a long time. White is a color that includes all other colors, therefore whitelist is intended as a list that includes "all the things in the set".. black is a color that excludes all colors, therefore blacklist is a term taht means "things excluded from the set"

I suppose the terms are rather interesting and cool when you look into them, I never thought about that.

I am not sure the protocols will dictate the abusiveness of the content in the network itself.However it will, and the intended goal should be, to give you more control over the content you are exposed to.

@cwebber

@freemo @ourdiaspora @cwebber In ancient greek democracy a 'yes' vote was cast by placing a white stone in a large jar, and a 'no' vote was cast by placing a black stone instead. The idiom 'blackball' to mean to deny or negate something as a reference to greek voting was in frequent use in English going back centuries. In WWII British ports would 'blackball' (deny entry and services to) vessels believed to be carrying supplies bound for the german war effort. The list that was circulated to the portmasters of these 'blackballed' ships became knows as the 'black list'. The term 'whitelist' emerged simply as the opposite of 'blacklist'.

@anonymoose

Correct, none of which has any racial bigotry implied by the term historically or today. The idea that blacklist and whitelist are racially insensitive is little more than rewriting history.

There is plenty of actual racism to worry about, I dont see the need to invent racism that never existed and then try to rewrite the dictionary on those fictional grounds.

@ourdiaspora @cwebber

@anonymoose

Its usually the same people who think "whitelist" is racially insensitive that also think "white washing" is related to race. I have had so many ignorant people assume my use of the term whitewashing was based on white people removing blacks from historical significance when in reality that has nothing to do with what that term means either. Its literally a reference to a type of paint used to cover up walls.

@ourdiaspora @cwebber