Trump being able to clone Mastodon is not the same as letting Trump on Mastodon.social
The Mastodon devs made a choice in releasing it as open source. They could have decided to pick and chose who is allowed to use it. It was completely foreseeable, that the software would be used for something like Gab or Truth.Social. When they release update, they know that these will also be used by such services.
This is merely a statement of fact, not criticism. They chose not to exercise power or become arbiters of good and evil. That is laudable.
Bluesky is a centralized platform and their mods don’t ban Nazis.
I get it. You feel that tech companies should deny service to bad people. For example, to a government agency acting on behalf of a president elected by a solid majority of the popular vote.
I agree that the voters got it wrong, but I don’t think that the rich and powerful vetoing voters will lead to good outcomes. Look at medieval Europe. Life got better with democracy, not with a supposedly more just king.
The tech lord most in line with your ideas is Elon Musk, except that he’s kinda nazi. So, on a purely practical note, it doesn’t seem very likely that tech companies being more political would lessen racism.
Do you think it would be better if all the billionaires, who are probably mostly non-nazi, were activist like him?
It’s worth pointing out that “lesser of two evils” reasoning is used by both parties. White privileged “libertarians” voted fascist because they felt unrepresented too.
Every single elected official who isn’t explicitly against FPTP was OK with this outcome. They know about the spoiler effect.
I think that tech companies taking a stand on what their employees and/or users believe in is a reasonable thing.
Idk what the employees of bluesky believe, but I’m fairly familiar with the bay area tech scene and I think that there is a decent chance that the employees would like to take a stand by not providing services to ICE.
That being said, idk if simply allowing them to have an account is providing services. I think it’s probably better to have govt agencies have verified accounts so people know when things are official statements, even if you disagree with the agency.
I think that tech companies taking a stand on what their employees and/or users believe in is a reasonable thing.
How would that actually work? Like, you’d have pro-Trump and anti-Trump companies that only employ pro- and anti-Trump employees and only serve pro- and anti-Trump customers? What happens when someone who is basically pro-Trump thinks that ICE goes too far?
Bluesky is a centralized platform and their mods don’t ban Nazis.
Trump being able to clone Mastodon is not the same as letting Trump on Mastodon.social
Every Mastodon instance can choose to defederate with truth social
BlueSky can choose to kick ICE off their platform
It’s that simple
The Mastodon devs made a choice in releasing it as open source. They could have decided to pick and chose who is allowed to use it. It was completely foreseeable, that the software would be used for something like Gab or Truth.Social. When they release update, they know that these will also be used by such services.
This is merely a statement of fact, not criticism. They chose not to exercise power or become arbiters of good and evil. That is laudable.
I get it. You feel that tech companies should deny service to bad people. For example, to a government agency acting on behalf of a president elected by a solid majority of the popular vote.
I agree that the voters got it wrong, but I don’t think that the rich and powerful vetoing voters will lead to good outcomes. Look at medieval Europe. Life got better with democracy, not with a supposedly more just king.
The tech lord most in line with your ideas is Elon Musk, except that he’s kinda nazi. So, on a purely practical note, it doesn’t seem very likely that tech companies being more political would lessen racism.
Do you think it would be better if all the billionaires, who are probably mostly non-nazi, were activist like him?
narrow plurality
It’s worth pointing out that “lesser of two evils” reasoning is used by both parties. White privileged “libertarians” voted fascist because they felt unrepresented too.
Every single elected official who isn’t explicitly against FPTP was OK with this outcome. They know about the spoiler effect.
Even then it’s highly dubious that it was even a plurality. Vote counts in swing states were HIGHLY irregular and 100% controlled by Musk.
I think that tech companies taking a stand on what their employees and/or users believe in is a reasonable thing.
Idk what the employees of bluesky believe, but I’m fairly familiar with the bay area tech scene and I think that there is a decent chance that the employees would like to take a stand by not providing services to ICE.
That being said, idk if simply allowing them to have an account is providing services. I think it’s probably better to have govt agencies have verified accounts so people know when things are official statements, even if you disagree with the agency.
How would that actually work? Like, you’d have pro-Trump and anti-Trump companies that only employ pro- and anti-Trump employees and only serve pro- and anti-Trump customers? What happens when someone who is basically pro-Trump thinks that ICE goes too far?
The majority of USA citizens voted for Trump. Why should Bluesky take a stand on what a minority believe in?
Actually, less than a quarter of citizens voted for him. Less than a 3rd or registered voters.
Not even half of a half of citizens said they wanted this.
Even if that was true, which it isn’t, a company should reflect the beliefs of its employees and community.