hootOS

HOOT_OS - V.30

Stryxnine Amity Pulsatrix
(30/🇨🇦/Saskatchewan)
NACRS Organizer
esports broadcast producer
plural, autistic, adhd
disability & queer activist
hobbyist archival researcher
bylines in Traxion.gg
loves @kadybat and @traumagotchi and @kaceydotme

57RYX9 DESIGN - Visual FX and Graphic Design North American Cohost Racing Series organizer & founder
Big Muddy Archive News


MSN Escargot
hootwheelz@escargot.chat

YuushaRuby
@YuushaRuby
This post has content warnings for: Antisemitism.

YuushaRuby
@YuushaRuby

One of these people from the “freespeechextremist” instance just tried following me on cohost, I guess I’m getting stalked everywhere by nazis now, oh to be Jewish online! I checked the link tree link because I was curious who this might be and they have an account linked to that instance on their… gab profile? But anyway yeah the fediverse nazis are now stalking me so that’s wonderful, I hate online I just like posting you fucking chuds


YuushaRuby
@YuushaRuby

This is the response I got from Kara just now, this is… not great in my opinion, like I tell you people from this clearly nazi instance have been calling me a kike and tranny for 72 hours and someone from that instance follows me on cohost and that’s not actionable? Okay, whatever, I think I’m gonna leave cohost, see ya! I’d really rather see this rectified than leave the site, but I’m disappointed to say the least


hootOS
@hootOS

my perception of moderation on the site has been that the slightest hint of a red flag when it comes to antisemitism, queerphobia, racism or any other type of shameful discriminatory behavior would get a user nuked from the site. this fuckin user came from the @/freespeechextremist instance, which is what i assume to be a significant enough red flag to make me think this site would not be better off allowing that kind of person on this site.

beyond just that, ASSC isn't looking to make a profit off the site either, or at least not in the ways other websites have gone. they're not trying to pump site population up to sell or anything. beyond that, users have been banned in the past who showed a history of queerphobia and sexism in the past. so why is this situation any different? i can understand if this particular user is the least bad among the trash on the FSE instance, but they still smell like fucking garbage.

i dunno. this moderation decision is either a goofy misstep, or i've mistakenly placed my trust in yet another social media site. idk.

the account in question was banned. i need to remind myself that ASSC are just four people trying to do good in the world, and sometimes they're gonna make mistakes. i know a lot of people have made promises about making change and broken those promises with no intention of rectifying it, but i also know ASSC is different. they genuinely want to do good. people are gonna make mistakes because people are not perfect. even the concept of "robotic precision" is inaccurate because robots can only be as precise as the humans building them can achieve with the robotics.

it's hard to keep emotions from overriding us. we've all been on social media that has been exceedingly toxic to our minds for decades, to the point that seeing a mistake like this can be scary. but unlike our past experience, the ASSC team wants to be certain they made the right call. as kara mentioned on its response to the situation, it's important to engage with discussions about these mistakes in good faith. Being able to engage in good faith discussion requires a significant amount of trust from both sides of the discussion, and it's a level of trust we're not used to seeing online.

I was putting ASSC on a pedestal, and that was my mistake. ASSC isn't perfect, nor will they ever be. but they're a whole lot better than i've seen from social media dev teams elsewhere, masto instances included.


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in reply to @YuushaRuby's post:

fwiw i’ve gotten VERY quick turnaround time for antisemitism reports on cohost (like within 3 hours), if you haven’t already reported them then do so and maybe put a note in the report about the nazi stalking so staff is aware of the situation. i’m sorry they’re doing this shit to you tho, that fucking blows

in reply to @YuushaRuby's post:

well this fuckin sucks. gab appears to be literally the only site on that list the guy's active on too and his page there is full of godawful shit

the staff are generally sensible about this sort of thing; i would assume here that kara's working off internal guidelines. but if guidelines let people like that remain on the site, they are in dire need of revision

edit: given their past record it seems likely this will be reconsidered as soon as there are more hands on deck

I only glanced over the community guidelines just now, but I didn't notice a line specifically about the circumstance of off-site activity, even though I'm pretty sure the staff have acted on that before. So maybe that is the case and Kara isn't aware this is a thing it can do? This is definitely something they should all be on the same page about.

wow this sucks. i hope they rethink this, like it’s so obvious what the right thing to do here is and instead they chose to sit on their hands and enable the nazis harassing you. i’m sorry this shit is happening

It's not like u need to scroll that long in their gab account to see them reposting shit, even if them just being on those sites and trying to follow u after a bout of harrassment wasn'f enough.

Similarly a trans person with Jewish roots but I'm openly violent towards Nazis so I guess they're too chicken shit to fuck with me. I'm sorry this hasn't been fixed yet and I really hope the site changes their opinion on the matter and bans them.

Hey all. After some internal discussion we decided to take action and remove the user. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

We're not always going to get it right the first time, even in situations where you think we should. Patience and open discussion go a long way to helping us fix those issues.

Purely off-site behavior is a difficult thing for anyone to assess, and it's going to be an area where sometimes we won't have a 100% hit rate.

and, just to be clear, Cohost is not a home for antisemites, transphobes, racists, etc..., or really any fucking extreme-right chud. I think this is obvious enough from everything we've said and done in the past, but I will reiterate it just to be sure.

If there are times where we miss or get it wrong, please keep that context in mind, and know that we're also trying to work in good faith with y'all.

I see that I'm in one of the screenshots above because it looks like this guy rechosted my post about chile peppers. Last night I noticed he started following me, and then I saw that he had a Gab and a Parler account, and I was trying to figure out how to address my discomfort about that... I'm glad that this got resolved.