Comment by beeflet
16 hours ago
Firstly, there is still pretty centralized moderation done through the bureaucracy of mastodon operators and federation. Similar situation in bluesky. The whole advantage of these "networks" is that they allow you to opt-in to blocklists. A federation essentially becomes a massive aggregation of blocklists, because members that do not obey the blocking policies of others will become defederated. These aren't really opt-in consent-based social spaces here because the vast majority of the "consent" is still delegated by a third party.
These networks appeal to control freaks who subscribe to many massive blocklists so they don't have to confront challenging ideas. I oppose them on the grounds that being a control freak is bad for the individual and society in general.
Unfortunately, we are all unwelcome participants in society at large. This is the idea behind protests for example. Real life is not consent-based, so the more time you spend in these networks the more poorly acclimated to reality you will become and the more removed you will be from the public arena of ideas.
The ill-effects are that whatever (political?) faction that embraces these sort of networks will become mentally weak and will continue to lose debates, and eventually (political?) power.
I don't know about whoever you're referring to but I actually just want to chat with cool people (and hear about what they're up to) and don't want to see any bigoted, ignorant bullshit. It has worked out so well that I have zero interest in any other "social networking" protocol/software whatsoever. In my circles I see exactly zero control freaks, probably because I only associate/interact with people who have respect for the agency of others. I just block/mute people who violate that agency (tho I've only had to do so once or twice) and the server I'm on generally correlates with that vibe.
The "public arena of ideas" has almost nothing to offer me. If I dare to peruse something like Reddit or Twitter I am immediately aware of the overwhelming averageness of the ideas and degree of insight generally at hand. Such places are poor venues for depthful, nuanced discussion, especially about any difficult topics, especially with the outrage-bolstering "algorithms" in full force, forcing divisive content in everyone's face.