How Can We Make the Fediverse a Safe Space for BIPOC… Again?
/2025-10/session/4-a/
Convener: Julian Lam (@julian@activitypub.space)
Participants who chose to record their names here:
- Seth Goldstein (@phillycodehound@indieweb.social)
- Anca (@anca@mastodon.xyz)
- Alexis (@alexisbushnell@toot.wales) ✅️ (taskforce please)
- Michael (@michael@newsmast.social)
- Darius Kazemi (@darius@friend.camp)
- William Maggos (@wjmaggos@liberal.city) ✅️
- Jim DeLaHunt (@jdlh@mstdn.ca)
- Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden@mas.to)
- Samir (@samir@m.fedica.com)
- Jayne Samuel-Walker (@tcmuffin@toot.wales) ✅️
- Jon (@jdp23@neuromatch.social)
- Jeremiah Lee (@Jeremiah@alpaca.gold)
- Anthony Zone (@ozoned@social.ozoned.net, ozoned@ozoned.net)
- @skarnio@alquimidia.org
- narF ….. (@narF@mstdn.ca) (task force ✅️)
- @travisfw@fosstodon.org ✧ would love to be further involved. ✅️
- Christine Galvagna ✅️
- Matthias Pfefferle (@pfefferle@mastodon.social)
Pre-session housekeeping
- This is an open session, not a lecture, I don’t have any answers, but let’s explore and put together a State of the Fediverse report, perhaps?
- Background from: https://plus.flux.community/p/banning-controversy-reveals-blueskys
- I gotta admit, I am loving how little of the conversation is just “BlueSky bad!”"
Notes
- Not speaking for any communities. Just a discussion.
- Past couple days ago Bluesky banned a prominent Blacksky organizer. They were blocked from being seen on Bluesky and Blacksky.
- Something strange happened with the blocking on blacksky which was on a different pds
- Let’s talk about how we can do better from the first time.
- Move slowly, build bridges (Rob Gehl) https://www.moveslowlybuildbridges.com/ « Worth a read
- https://privacy.thenexus.today/mastodon-a-partial-history/ also has a lot of links about the early days, showing how far back this problem goes
- Context behind how BlackSky works and why it is not yet finished
- https://bsky.app/profile/rude1.blacksky.team/post/3m2n62lo6v22p
- https://reddwarf.whey.party/profile/did:plc:63hvnyjvqi2nzzcsjgnry5we (profile still visible outside of non-BS infra)
- Ian Forrester » literally didn’t know about this until now » Never want to start a war on Bluesky. Lots of back and forth on VC funding on Bluesky » Lots of communities have joined Bluesky so we need to focus on the VC Funding and this is great that we have a huge amount attention, but where is the money coming from? Influence???????
- Follow/Trace the money!
- Who is funding it. What’s going on.
- The federation was supposed to be there on Bluesky but hasn’t been done.
- Julian » tech POV privacy feature that AP uses could be weaponized. Something with the followers only post. Dogpiling. Outside of the wider network.
- Samir - BlackSky banning is a non-story on the Fediverse, if you violate the rules of the instance you are removed
- re: dogpiling – only strategy (by the user) is to ignore
- Complex issue and as a community we can do better
- https://plutopsyche.medium.com/blueskys-ceo-meltdown-how-leadership-continues-to-fail-its-most-marginalized-users-8bfa7a8824b4 is a good
- William –> Is there a good write up from authoritative source about this on Fedi/AP
- A lot of what Mekka says: https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke
- https://logicmag.io/policy/blackness-in-the-fediverse-a-conversation-with-marcia-x/
- Marcia X ‘What took me aback regarding the fediverse is that my networks were mostly “leftists” and self-proclaimed radical thinkers regarding race, ableism, gender, patriarchy, sexuality, et cetera, and yet what I was being exposed to was a lot of naiveté or hostility for questioning whiteness as a basis for many people’s takes or approaches to these subject matters. And if I were to question or push back on their whiteness, I was often accused of being biased myself. It became clear to me that there were many queer, radical leftists on the fediverse who had never taken the time to address race, whiteness, white supremacy in their politic, who hadn’t done any kind of organizing or work outside of online community spaces, and hadn’t engaged with the literature of Black and queer folks of color.’
- Anca: There was a black-focused Mastodon instance but they were not treated well https://logicmag.io/policy/blackness-in-the-fediverse-a-conversation-with-marcia-x/
- Darius: Google “Black Fediverse”
- https://www.techpolicy.press/the-whiteness-of-mastodon/ is excellent
- “A much more general cultural problem – lots of telling Black folk that they are using the fediverse wrong”
- Lots of white priviledge
- “We don’t know what we don’t know, we don’t see what we don’t see” - Seth
- Alexis: “What from a ‘do stuff’ POV can we do, is it cultural or tech?” Where is the biggest issue?
- “the tech factors in to some extent – prioritizing safety-related functionality is importnat. To Mastodon’s credit they did a very good job talking with Black users as they implemented quote posts” - Jon P.
- Unattributed: “If Link were on m.s the same would’ve happened, him going on a different service is not who he is”
- BS worked because it was simple, low friction, lots of Black people early on
- “Federation doesn’t just solve the issue”
- Vector of abuse: DMs, abusers know how to rig the system
- “What are the threat models, how can people exploit them?”
- Protocol wars help no-one, federation would not have done much for Link
- “Widen the horizons beyond technology before forming opinions”
- Unattributed: what can implementors build?
- Reputation management – shared blocklists, infra requests for this functionality
- Ian: “Federation isn’t a solution, but it’s part of one. It’s a societal thing, like Alexis said” - societal and cultural
- Unattributed: “is this a resource problem or a technical problem?”
- Making available resources is something a community can do
- Amazing what’s happening with BlackSky but in an ideal world, Rudy’s work shouldn’t be needed!
- Unattributed: How can we convince people on BlackSky that they should connect with the fediverse?
- Show them there is communication happening on both networks, who gives a shit about protocols?
- Jon P. - culturally: https://privacy.thenexus.today/start-making-the-fediverse-less-toxic/
- Michael F. - could we involve the Asia-Pacific community?
- Alexis B. - welcome parties, welcome buddy system. Include anti-racism education?
- Unattributed - Anyone who sets up a mastodon server knows there are a cloud of troll/abusive instances out there, more than micro-aggressions
- Simple steps software could be doing
- including blocklist by default
- taking unmoderated sites off of onboarding sites
- Simple steps software could be doing
- Anca: prioritise building a safe space at the beginning, expose to the wider fediverse later. +1 on base blocklists
- Jim @jdlh: decisions have pro’s and con’s. They are tradeoffs. There are different frames of reference one can use to weigh those pro’s and con’s. The frame for an experienced Fediverse user who doesn’t get lots of abuse leads to one weighing of tradeoffs. The frame for a new Fediverse user who is target for lots of abuse will have different weighing. As developers and administrators, we can consciously evaluate tradeoffs in terms of a different frame than one’s own.
- Unattributed: “sounds like we need a task force for this”
- Jon P.: do your homework first, people are tolerant if you’re not perfect
Post-session Follow-ups
Please join me at https://activitypub.space for continued discussions