In the world, there is a great dearth between the number of mistakes people will officially admit were made and the number of people accountable for them. Somehow, we are to believe that some mistakes are generated organically from unhealthy systems, that no one individual needs to step forward and accept responsibility. The people who put these systems in place are so likely to get off free.
I must admit that certain behavior I see in certain spheres has brought me to pause in thought. Many people want to indict the community of Twitter, even on Twitter- in the Discord server I'm in, we've made a habit of taking the piss out of people who wade knee deep into drama retweeting and repeating sentiments deriding people who stir up needless drama, and that sort of thing. And sure enough, quite often these same people turn right back around and do it again later. There's no accountability, or apology issued for previous behavior; on Online, you must never show vulnerability or your enemies will never let you live it down, and furthermore, your mistake brought you attention, approval, Likes, followers, and- let's face it- probably money. So they'll bully the next Protagonist Of The Day just like they did the last dozen, jump to absurd conclusions, make a parade out of how much they hate nazis/zoos/whatever else on their personal variant of the Wheel Of Things You're Not Supposed To Be.
Unfortunately, I smell it here on Cohost too. People come from other sites and say "boy am I glad this isn't like those other sites where harassment mysteriously happened." Who is the toxic element being left behind on Twitter? Can you name a single person from there who isn't here that is uniquely perpetuating the atmosphere more than others? Where was the harassment coming from?
We have to face the facts. If we can agree that "all the annoying tumblr people left for twitter", that the migration was the menace it was trying to escape, and if most people can acknowledge similar about Snouts/Mastodon and its cutthroat (and frankly, white-activist) culture bubbling underneath the toxic positivity, then we need to admit that the trauma we have inflicted on each-other passed through our own hearts and our own fingertips. We cannot leave accountability in the cloud when we still bear open wounds and grudges from lives past. We have to point to ourselves, prescribe the change in ourselves- even if we think we've already changed or were never really to blame, we need to vocalize our regret so that we can once again feel safe around each-other and prevent any defensive overreaction or spite from appearing.
Given what I am asking of the community, it's only fair that I start with myself. I have already addressed these things more privately on various occasions, but they're relevant, so here they are on the public record; I will leave them in the comments. I invite you to do something similar, either here or in some other way; resolve to do your best to heal the conflicts you have participated in or created. Our spaces need to have room- hopefully not just for mea culpa, but for forgiveness. I hope that the years have created enough distance between the versions of ourselves tied up in whatever compelled us to act those ways and the versions of ourselves that we can be now. I hope we can be better. I hope we can be kind.