Historically, porn has organically decided which platform or formats become dominant. It’s incredibly anti-censorship, but walks many fine lines.
As Reddit now and tomorrow reveals more weaknesses, where will the OnlyFans creators, porn posters, and all those grassroots porn communities go? The creators need to make money by showing to a large and interested user base. The users need lots of content to choose from and be fed constantly, with very few hindrances between them and their…goals. Many of the niches actually have respectful and healthy communities, too. Those people deserve an easy to use platform, just as much as people that want to look at cats, some of those groups, arguably more.
The thought of how to pose this to the Fediverse, now, has been on my mind for weeks:
Can the fediverse rise to the task? Does it even want to? Should it?
Personally, I think it should absolutely try, but I’m not sure it can do so without several deep strides in tech and development. I’m aware this is a hot af take, but it’s undeniable that the internet IS for porn, and denying that would be a huge opportunity loss for inevitably winning this popularity context.
Im copying/pasting something I said on another thread but it applies here. Its what I would like to ultimately have in the federation:
I am a free speech absolutist and I want pretty much anything to go but I want the tools for users to be able to block it in any manner they want from blocking users to blocking magazines to blocking domains and I want it to include comments and actually go both ways (joke not intended but right after I wrote that I liked it). When I block something I don’t want that person, place, or thing to see any of my comments or posts. If I blocked them its a good chance its folks that might try doxing or some shit. I would like blockers to know who or what they blocked so they can undo if they choose but I don’t want blockees to know. I would like profiles to be only seeable by logged in users and I would like usernames and such masked for folks not logged in. I realize this is a lot and its not here now and that some folks may hate the idea of what I write here but that is how I would like to see something like this go. As much power as possible brought to individual consumers to prune their feeds and as much freedom as possible for creators.
I don’t see how you could effectively block people seeing you if the person wanted to, because even if a system is made so you can only be seen by logged in users, that user could make an alt. Heck, they could have an alt that they don’t use for commenting, so one wouldn’t even know to block it.
well I wouldn’t expect it to in that circumstance. I just want the most out of what it could do. Stalkers going to that extreme will always get the way around to some degree. I just don’t want it easy for them to notice and honestly I would prefer in the long run they not exactly advertise that stuff but just have it be the way it is and someone would have to look into it to know blocking works both ways. It will certainly cut down on the casual jerk. Jerk being a realtive term to the individual. To me a system like that would approach more what organically happens in life. You hang with those you like and avoid those you don’t.
I think the idea of shadow-banning yourself on other people’s accounts is something that only makes sense in extreme cases.
It could easily make a mess in comment threads if it is used too much.
It’s already personal when it’s needed, so I doubt it would stop trolls, stalkers or harassment very much.
See thats the thing. I don’t block individuals willy nilly. I curate heaviest from the top down. Also I think what your talking about only happens at the point of the block. In the long run it just curates the content. The real problem, like pretty much all the problems, is folks doing wierd stuff like making multiple accounts and playing around with the system. But that kinda thing has issues all the time. Individuals can act like their own bots with multiple accounts upvoting/boosting and downvoting and having discusions among themselvs. Our really only defense against it is the individuals ability to currate to the max. At least in my opinion. I wonder how much this comes down to viewpoint. I am thinking of this very much selfishly from my own experience and what I want to get out of this. Thinking just now are you thinking more in terms of the community at large? My hope with the federation is instance allow for both theoretically. So I could ultimately live in my shadow banning heaven that federates with every thing while some folks will have less extreme things but the instance will defederate content to protevt them a bit and whatever. Maybe some better form of up and downvoting will happen too.
I think a lot of it comes down to what value you (or any user) puts in the votes.
Personally I do not care about downvotes. On Reddit it was a bit of an issue since the default would be to hide comments with negative votes, so someone could easily be muted from the conversation by coordinating or alt accounts. As of now, I don’t see this problem here.
Also, I don’t fear being harassed or stalked by random people online. I had a stalker on Reddit who’d message me every cakeday for several years. I found it funny and just gave them a bit of shit talk until they went away. I can see how some people might be more scared of stuff like that.
The only accounts I’ve blocked on Reddit were spam accounts, and I frankly I don’t care if they can see my posts. They probably don’t even read any posts.
Stalking on real life is lot more dangerous and nuanced. I know some who have had issues with this, and their online presence was the least of their concerns.
Anyway, I generally agree that the federated networks should use this opportunity to do better than Reddit or other social media whenever possible, and if it being customised hiding, then fine by me.
yeah honestly I see the communities votes as somewhat a tool if there is a lot to go through but another aspect I would like is for it to weight votes. I can’t login in anymore so I have no idea how the project is going but wts2 had where you can put a trust score for users 0-100 based on how your like their content or comments. That is exciting to me to as I would prefer the feed to be based on my opinion of the quality of peoples stuff rather they have generally garned through gamification on the community system.
Disagree on blocking them from responding. I think that this change to how the Reddit blocking feature worked was one of the largest errors Reddit made in recent years. Led to people in conversations disagreeing, one user making a statement and then blocking the other so that it looked like the blocking user would get the last word, which prevented the other from responding.
It’s also useless to stop someone from doxing you, because they can just create another account and use that. The only way that it would be efficacious in that regard would be if the whole system worked via whitelisting users rather than blacklisting them.
im not saying blocking from responding im saying I disapear to them and they to me. they can still respond and other folks I did not block would see it and possibly my last one. I would be the one unable to respond as I would not get notified of their response and no longer see it. I guess I would not expect any previous conversations that are in their notifications to necessarily disapear as thats already in their profile. I responded to someone on the doxing thing. I just want to get rid of low hanging fruit. Ultimately I just don’t want to be in the same virtual universe as them. I know it does not sound like it from this convo but I don’t block user often but when I do I really just don’t want anything to do with that person even incidentally.
That’s a hard no. Blocking is for curating your experience, not someone else’s.
I respect that but for me I want to get away from these people in all ways. I go to a bar and because of a few assholes I stop going even though there are some folks I like. There is no way around it. Technology holds the promise to be able to stay at the bar. Making others invisible to me but not becoming invisible to them is in some ways sorta scary. Especially when you consider im not looking to make folks invisible only some. A good example is I like discourse but if someone response is something like “well then stop being a jerk you pussy”, well that is not the discourse I want so I block them. I don’t see thier brilliant responses to my discourses now but as you say lurkers do or whatever. That is polluting my discourse and I did not want to talk with this person anymore. I really don’t know how to convey this honestly but anyway I don’t think mine is the end all be all its just what I would want and I totally get others not wanting it. Ultimately I will take half a loaf like most things in the world but I would leave for an instance that has what I want in an instant.
Nope. The discourse ended when you abandoned it. Whether the other person is still shitposting is something you have no control over. I guarantee that if they were enough of an asshole for you to want to block them, any lurker worth their salt’s already aware of their assholishness. And really, it’s kind of silly to concern yourself with the opinions of people who might or might not even be there.
Stop thinking of these exchanges as debates you need to win, and think of them instead as conversations that either are or aren’t worth your time. When you block, you’re making a decision the conversation’s not worth any more of your time, so stop giving it your attention–and that includes wondering what else has been said and what others think of it.
yeah I generally am not looking to win. I consider some of the best discourse to be when someone changes my mind. I don’t block people though to end a converstation. I just stop replying. blocking was becuase the person just replies with insults and just generally behaves badly. So its not about a particular discourse but about just wanting to be completely seperated from anyone like that.
This approach is incredibly open to abuse. Reddit implemented this to a lesser degree and abuse already started happening. By blocking everybody who disagrees with you, you can start threads that are only visible to lurkers and your supporters, creating a warped perception of public opinion and false consensus.
this sounds a bit like arguments I have had on this about it will create echo chambers. its up to lurkers to curate their own feeds and echo chambers will always be there. I want the ability to cut bs out of my stuff and others to do the same and I want freedom for creators to make what they want. Im sorry if it means bad stuff will be out there but that ship has sailed anyway. The more we get to something like this the more I think bad ideas will fall to obscurity. I really don’t see how blocking shit out is open to more abuse than shoveling the shit out. Honestly one thing I would hope with something like this is that I would need to filter less because hopefully some folks blocking me would increase the quality of my feed.
What are you talking about? Nobody’s disputing that. You seem to have lost the thread of the conversation, which is about preventing people you’ve blocked from seeing your posts. At that point you’re not cutting BS out of your stuff, but other people’s.
fair enough. I guess what I mean is I want the toxic individuals cut completely out of my (virtual) life. I don’t want to post for them to troll. I don’t want them part of a conversation im replying in. I don’t even necessarily see this as ever happening as it is a big ask. Im just saying what would to me be the ideal. I don’t want to listen to these folks or talk to them. I essentially want the amish shunning system but on an individually controlled basis.
Correctly implemented, a block system would allow them to see your comments but not reply. I think that’s essentially the major part of what you’re looking for?
not really. I really don’t want any interaction anymore generally so I would like them to not even see my comments. I realize its a big ask and quite likely something that will never happen but that would be the ideal for me. Not just comments but posts. They can reply to someone elses post on the same topic. I for all practical purposes would like to cease to exist for the person and vice versa. Don’t see thier posts or comments or anything.