My last post was about opening an account on Mastodon and feeling generally well-disposed towards it. My opinion has shifted over the short time that I’ve been on there. My view now is that I prefer(ed) Twitter as it was pre-Musk to Mastodon as it is now. This post is an attempt to articulate how my thoughts have shifted, not least for my own benefit.
To help me, I invoke the spirit of Shania Twain.
***
One of the more terrifying aspects of medieval and early-modern criminal law, certainly in Scotland, was a predilection towards burning the convicted. In large part this was drawn from biblical laws and punishments, and in most cases was related to crimes against natural law. The malefactor didn’t just have to be killed, they had to be thoroughly erased from existence because their very presence in creation was objectional to God. Indeed, in 1678, Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh wrote in his The Laws and Customs of Scotland in Matters Criminal that punishments for some particularly ‘atrocious’ crimes should be conducted in private or under the cover of darkness to avoid giving curious people any ideas.
I mention this because something of that same spirit prevails on Mastodon – the notion that some forms of wrong-think are so atrocious that they must be destroyed by fire, and hidden from the innocent eyes of decent users by de-platforming malefactors and defederation of servers/instances that bear the stain of their presence. I do not like that approach and reckon it will not survive contact with the larger world.
To misquote Shania,
I’ve known a few guys who think they’re pretty smart
But you’ve got your purity right down to an art
You think you’re all holy, you drive me up the wall
You’re all regular original know-it-alls
Oh-ooh-oh, you think you’re special
Oh-ooh-oh, you think you’re something else
OK, so you’re the thought police?
That don’t impress me much
People whose views differ from mine are voices I want to hear, or at least don’t mind hearing. And, anyway, other people’s right to hold opinions and their right to express them does not impose upon me any correlative obligation to listen. I block and mute on Twitter, but do that at my own initiative not at the whim of third parties who want to maintain ideological purity, I typically only block and mute on the basis of the way those views are expressed or when extended argument about topics gets tiresome.
To be clear, I’m not saying that there aren’t opinions out there that I find objectionable or that there aren’t bad actors telling lies for various ends, and I am not advocating a red in tooth and claw free-for-all approach to social interaction. But, notwithstanding recognition of the need for moderation and controls, I do not like being prohibited from seeing or hearing other people’s words and opinions because of someone else’s scruples, and that is the default position of Mastodon by design.
Much is made of a culture of kindness and tolerance on Mastodon, but when I’ve lifted the lino to see what’s underneath, I’ve seen some aggressively unpleasant attempts at forced moderation expressed in objectionable terms – not so much attempts to foster an ethos of kindness as the operation of levers to enforce silence while also expressing smug satisfaction about the superiority of the place. In that context, I am aware of the reported experiences of people of colour who have found the culture in the Fediverse to be unwelcoming at best and actively hostile at worst. The nature of Mastodon’s federated structure means it is difficult for me to see or experience that first-hand, but I have no reason to disbelieve those voices.
You’re all those guys who like to shine their ego
Wherever the zeitgeist goes there you are
I can’t believe you kiss your servers good night
Now, c’mon, baby, tell me? You must be jokin’, right?
Oh-ooh-oh, you think you’re something special
Oh-ooh-oh, you think you’re something else
OK, so you think that you’re refugees?
That don’t impress me much
I’ve made many good and genuine friends over the decades online on various list servers, forums, and platforms. As I said in the last post here,
Why bother? Well, it all comes down to two reasons: (i) at its best social media is genuinely social, fun and informative in exactly the same way as a night at the pub; (ii) out of sociability and engagement arises the potential to make people aware of my writing without spamming them.
I think Musk may well have done terminal damage to Twitter (see here for one reason why I think he has.) He emailed his remaining staff to say that he sees Twitter as ‘at heart a software and server business,’ which is about as complete a misunderstanding of what he bought as it’s possible to get, and that doesn’t bode well. For now, Twitter may or may not be on the tumbril rattling towards the scaffold, and Mastodon will do for some purposes – until something better comes along.
OK, so you’re Elon Musk?
That don’t impress me much …
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