[phpisthebest]

That is the thing, people do not go to twitter to be in "Small Focused Community"

They do it to interact with the globe, and the more people on that network the better it is.

There are a million ways to create a niche site (like hacker news) that allows a Small Focused Community to interact, that is not a replacement for Twitter

[lijogdfljk]

Agreed, but that's kinda the point in my eyes. Maybe a global forum with no moderation everyone can agree with is a bad thing? Ie maybe it makes everyone unhappy?

Everyone was on Facebook too. We're not all looking for Facebook 2.0 currently, are we? Yea, we have different form factors of social networks, definitely. But some (not all!) of the core features of Facebook were misguided or mismanaged. Some features of Facebook aren't looking to be replaced.

I'm not saying Mastodon is a replacement for Twitter. I'm simply saying maybe some features of Twitter aren't worth being replaced for many people.

[phpisthebest]

>>Maybe a global forum with no moderation everyone can agree with is a bad thing? Ie maybe it makes everyone unhappy?

I do not agree, and it does not make me unhappy at all. I am late 70's child, I experienced the Wild West of the internet, nothing posted to twitter (or the chan's for that matter) shock me, or makes me unhappy

I think people need thicker skin, and maybe more anonymity not less...

Censorship is not the solution, never has been in history and never will be in the future.

[jaredcwhite]

> I think people need thicker skin

What a ridiculous thing to say. Actually plenty of us (and I've also been on the internet for many decades now) would like to hop online to engage with some cool folks about [insert interesting topic here] without having utter garbage and dreck thrown up in our faces like racism, transphobia, misogyny, bigotry, etc., etc.

[phpisthebest]

Well it is good thing for you all major platforms have the ablity to block, mute, or otherwise curate your experience, including sharing "block lists" and other innovations so your personal experience is what you make it to be

I support giving people the power to create their own echo chambers and safe spaces, feel free to do so..

No one should be forced to communicate with anyone they do not want to, however you also should not be able to prevent me from communicating with others that I desire to

>>What a ridiculous thing to say

Not really, it is sad parents have stopped teaching "Sticks and Stones my break my bones but words will never harm me"

We really have lost the cultural axiom "I may hate what you say, but I will defend your right to say it" haven't we.

[lijogdfljk]

> Well it is good thing for you all major platforms have the ablity to block, mute, or otherwise curate your experience, including sharing "block lists" and other innovations so your personal experience is what you make it to be

Why would i choose a platform where i have to moderate thousands of individuals? Ie what's the purpose in that lol?

Where is this world where we went from having Forums of communities to global cesspools where we want to manage what sort of nonsense shows up on the feed?

> We really have lost the cultural axiom "I may hate what you say, but I will defend your right to say it" haven't we.

I didn't say this, so your two replies in one feels odd. However, no one is stopping you from saying it. Say it all you want. I'm advocating a smaller forum where i don't have to listen to you say things to me that i'm uninterested in.

I'm not stopping you from being on the internet. From having electricity. Just like i'm fine with you yelling on the street corner.

I'm moving to the other side of the street. And you object to that, for some odd reason. Because by me moving, it doesn't give you a voice?

Edit: To sum it up, this isn't about safe spaces. This is about spam. There's only so much "Vaccines give you 5G!!!" i can put up with lol. Just like the guy on the street corner. Hard to have a conversation around that annoying screaming.

[yosame]

> "Sticks and Stones my break my bones but words will never harm me"

Emotions are real, and emotional pain is real. Of course words can hurt you, they evoke emotions.

[phpisthebest]

Emotions are real, but is it not the public responsibility to manage your emotions. Each person, solely, is responsible for their own emotions. If "emotional harm" becomes the basis for what speech is allowed and what is not then we cease to have a culture of free expression

“It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what." -- Stephen Fry

You can not have free expression if the only thing required to shut down that expression is to claim emotional harm. I did not respect that position when it was the Christian right claim harms if gays spoke nor do I today when the authoritarian left claims emotional harm over the wrong pronouns

[lijogdfljk]

> I do not agree, and it does not make me unhappy at all. I am late 70's child, I experienced the Wild West of the internet, nothing posted to twitter (or the chan's for that matter) shock me, or makes me unhappy

Yea, i did say "everyone" but i didn't actually mean everyone. Lots of people enjoy Facebook in all it's glory, too.

> Censorship is not the solution, never has been in history and never will be in the future.

My comment wasn't about Censorship, though. It was about people and a possibility that they may prefer categorized focused communities like many of us grew up with. Which may or may not include moderation (aka "censorship")

I certainly enjoyed the forums of old more than the modern day global scroll feed. But i prefer focused/categorized content, clearly.

My point wasn't that you do or don't. Merely to pose a question. A question (among many) that could dictate whether or not the Forums of old have a place in the modern day. Whether or not the global attention draw that is Twitter is actually desired. edit: Desired enough to keep it alive and "successful", at least.

[subsection1h]

> Censorship is not the solution

LOL. You posted this to a moderated forum.

> I experienced the Wild West of the internet

I was on USENET in the early 90s, and newsgroups like comp.lang.c.moderated were created for a reason. Unmoderated forums end up as cesspools.

[akomtu]

Censorship and moderation are very different things. Moderation is more about format than content: too frequent posting, adding hyperlinks to irrelevant sites, intentionally poor formatting (all capslock) and so on. And moderators are usually public figures, because the rules are simple and widely supported. Censorship is "wrongthink moderation": censors dont care about format of the message, but care about the thought behind it. Censors are usually anon figures and the rules are usually unpopular and secret for this reason.