TheRealBob

I was talking about social media specifically.

There aren’t nearly as many right wingers and fascists as social media makes you believe. Speaking as a Mastodon instance admin, every single time we’ve had huge waves of bot and/or troll signups they’ve been very clearly right wing accounts (almost all had similar bios) that almost immediately started interacting with and boosting each other as well as harassing trans and queer people.

The thing about the fediverse is that it can’t be manipulated the way centralized social media can. So what happens is that it gets handled very quickly. They get banned and their instances get defederated so all they can do is shout into the void. They’re not, nor have they ever been, the majority by any stretch of the imagination, and most people have absolutely no desire to hear what they have to say at all.

On top of that, a huge number of them are grifters, and they won’t get any engagement here. They can’t get the kind of viral outrage they need because most people aren’t even seeing their posts.

First of all I want to make it clear that I don’t agree with this defederation, if the models are verified adults then there is no problem.

That said, as a Mastodon instance admin, I wanna explain something to y’all. CSAM is one of those things that you do not want to take your chances with as an admin. Beyond the obvious fact that it’s vile, even having that shit cached on your server can potentially lead to very serious legal trouble. I can see how an admin might choose to defederate because even if right now all models are verified, what if something slips through the cracks (pun not intended, but I’ll roll with it).

My instance defederates a bunch of Japanese artist instances like pawoo because of this. All it takes is one user crossing the line, one AI generated image that looks too real.

Aside from all that, there’s also a lot of pressure being put on many instance admins to outright ban users and defederate instances that post or allow loli/shota artwork as well. You’re quickly labeled a pedophile if you don’t do it. A lot of people consider fake CSAM to be just as bad, so it’s possible that the other admin felt that way.

I’m more lenient on loli/shota as long as it’s not realistic because I understand that it’s a cultural difference and generally speaking Japanese people don’t see it the way we do. I don’t ban stuff just because I think it’s gross, I just don’t look at it.

Anyway what I’m trying to say I guess is that being an admin is hard and there’s a lot of stuff y’all don’t know about so disagree with that person if you want (I do too) but keep in mind that these decisions don’t come easy and nobody likes to defederate.

EDIT: here’s a mastodon thread about the CSAM problem in the fediverse if you’d like to learn more.

USA here. Only reason I have WhatsApp is to stay in touch with friends in Europe and South America. Not a single one of my American friends or relatives uses it.

Jesus Christ I don’t even let my dog bark during the day. I always bring him inside. What the hell is wrong with people?

This isn’t new. They’ve always wanted this. The only new thing is that now they feel emboldened to actually do it.

And every single person who feels safe right now because this isn’t affecting them is in for a very rude awakening.

I live in Texas. I know these people. They think American = white, cis, straight, conservative. They will stop at nothing. They don’t care who gets hurt.

For real, I fucking love meat but I only eat it once a week now and it’s not like I’m fucking dying. And it’s not like what I’m eating now tastes bad or anything - lots of rice and beans (Brazilian style, fucking divine), potatoes and other veggies, sometimes a little tofu. It’s fine.

The world is literally dying and people are whining about hamburgers or whatever. Fucking insane man.

Oh god, I hadn’t even thought of that. Yikes.

Aw thank you!

Ah yeah I know about CC licenses, just didn’t even think to use one in this case. I’ll go do it now, thanks for the reminder!

No one. I’m the famous hacker 4chan.