so don't follow them. you're not going to see their posts based on who you follow. my question is why do we have to block servers cause people like your "family" is on there? why do we have to make sure someone on your server can't see what they post?

not federating means deciding for many others who can communicate, when having no algos does so much of this work. we browse freely and avoid shitty sites without our browser having such limits. decentralization works.

ted, i can't wrap my mind around this "a website is a common carrier" assertion

i'm sorry, but it's simply false

and yes: nazis chase away decent people. from any platform. and thus, substack's future fate is that of twitter and facebook

you're describing a subset of bigots who aren't in your face with their bigotry? ok. i'm certain there's such people on the fediverse already. but since they don't speak their bigotry, we'll never know. so... what's the point?

the issue, which you continually dance around, is that bigots reply guy and harass. if you can't agree such accounts need to be nuked from orbit, i don't know what to say to you, because you don't seem to understand a genuine and real problem

BTW, I really appreciate the constructive engagement here. This is a hard topic.

In a sense yes. But for me the common carrier question still holds. I follow several people on substack. I've never, as a result of this, had to read posts by sex traffickers or nazis. That feels more like "common carrier" than "community" to me.

E.g. on Facebook, which I left years ago for obvious reasons, I couldn't _not_ encounter nazis. Same thing on Twitter. So that's a very different experience.

Why do they need to be _here_? Why can't they be on their own instance that we don't federate with? Is it wrong for me to want to be able to read my site feed without being triggered? For wanting neighbors that I like?

I have "family" (not actual family, but effectively) who are MAGA. I don't want to not be in touch with them at all, but I really don't want to have to listen to them spew.

I wish @rbreich and Sarah Kendzior would make the move.

no, the essence of the problem is substack platforming sex traffickers and nazis

your complaints are valid, but your complaints have nothing to do with the real problem here, which creates the need to leave substack, leading to your complaints

the platforming of bigotry is the root issue

For some people it’s not necessarily about a specific action or being right or wrong. The issue is seeing horrific people on substack (ss) and being horrified by it. If ss has disgusting people on it, then the site itself disgusts some people.

I’m not saying using ss is wrong, it’s just that everything to do with it disgusts me, so I will miss the opportunity to hear their words. I’m OK with that.

not all the people that you call bigots because of their opinions or posting what you consider misinfo, would intentionally bother people if given the chance. the former should be welcome here, the latter should not be.

it's hard for me to believe everyone doesn't have experience with people like this, who believe stuff that seems crazy/evil but also would never intentionally bother others. who would go out of their way to help a stranger. but they are anti trans etc.

And that is the essence of the problem, isn't it. It feels different to you, and I completely understand and respect that, and I even feel the same way. I just don't trust the feeling very much.

Two points Molly made connected the most for me:

1. Can't recommend people on other sites (not sure how that's enforced, mind you).
2. Can't accept payments elsewhere (again, does that mean if I also have Ghost I can't accept payments there?)

it should be easier, no argument about that

So, that is both a great explanation for why Molly left, and at the same time a completely clear explanation for why e.g. Amanda and Anand don't leave. Holy shit that's a lot of work!

I've been contemplating the same thing, and as a result of my dithering over this, haven't actually set up my blog. This question has had me blocked for nearly a year—I really don't want to do substack, but the alternative is.. a LOT of work.

if your argument depends on treating ISPs and websites as the same sort of thing, i don't know what to say

amanda can choose between following molly white off substack and deal with that hassle

or amanda can choose to lose subscribers because she's still on substack

both choices have difficulties

and?

life is full of such choices

i'm not forcing her to do anything. i'm merely noting a choice exists, and i'm describing it. i'm not unilaterally imposing anything on her

Okay, but my retort here is "why do you think that." No need to actually answer this question unless you want to, but that's the thing I'm getting at. For me it's nowhere near as obvious as it seems to be for you.

I think the bending point would be whether it's a community or a public space. If it's a community, imposing community standards makes sense. If it's a public space, then stopping abuse makes sense, but stopping disagreeable speech feels too far.

The thing is, how much of Amanda's time are you willing to burn on this? It's her time. We've been talking about consent. Doesn't she get to consent (or not) to this?

I think the reason people like Amanda use substack is because they've already thought about this and made the decision that works for them. So me demanding that they revisit it seems disrespectful and, indeed, ungrateful. Holy shit is she doing a lot of good for democracy right now.

i think a website and an ISP are different enough concepts that the argument doesn't hold

so we try to convince amanda to move elsewhere

show amanda this:

https://www.citationneeded.news/substack-to-self-hosted-ghost/

I don't understand. I'm a random stranger to you. assuming that's in place, how do you ever decide to see my reply without ever seeing it?

I use spam as an example because imo fedi is like browsing plus email. we want free choice to see what we want but also want help with unwanted intrusions.

yes the jerks can switch servers which is why servers should also be able to block servers that don't try to prevent their server from being used this way.

There are people in the replies "just asking questions" that are easily answered by reading the words Dan Gillmor writes in plain, simple, English.

exactly

i am not sure how to respond to this because you're not accurately depicting what bigots do

bigots do not play nice

they don't sit in their corner and play pattycake with each other, they reply guy to trans people, black people, etc

if you can promise me we can let bigots on the fediverse and they will somehow respect what they don't respect (if they could, they wouldn't be bigots in the first place) then you win this argument

but you lose it, because bigots are bigots

The problem is that abusers of consent tend to try to get into peoples' mentions to start arguments. If they don't do that, you're right that there's no problem. The trouble is that they _do_ do that.

So being able to say "only people I specifically approve can get in my mentions" is really important. Even though there are people I follow who don't let me in their mentions and I'm absolutely crushed by this.