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Chris Trottier

"Oh, report the Twitter trolls if they come to the Fediverse," some of you #TwitterMigration people are saying.

No, I'm telling you that moderation on the Fediverse is imperfect, especially for admins.

If you've ever had a thread get boosted 6,000x, you'll know what I mean.

Don't make this place appealing for the trolls.

4 comments
Chris Trottier

Definitely moderation on the Fediverse is 100x better than Twitter.

But Twitter moderation is such a low bar of suck that it's easy to be *that* much better than Twitter.

Until the Fediverse has a culture of *pre-emptive* moderation, instead of reactive, the holes in the Fediverse are going to become more and more apparent as this thing gets bigger.

Don't believe me? Facebook and Twitter weren't that bad at first either.

Chris Trottier

There's one good thing about the Fediverse that puts it in a better position of moderation compared to Big Social:

As moderation needs become apparent, people can make monetary investments in better tools.

But you're going to have to convince millions of Fediverse users that *more* moderation tools are better than less -- because right now, too many people get grumpy when they perceive you interfering with their freeze peach.

Chris Trottier

I really hope that a tragedy doesn't happen before devs start realizing that community safety is more important than growth.

Cool. Stuff goes viral on the Fediverse.

But you know what's more cool? If stuff goes viral and neo-Nazis don't see that as an opportunity to spread their filth.

And no, blocking shouldn't be the only option -- Neo-Nazis are very adept at switching instances if their instances get shut out.

Chris Trottier

People ask how to pre-emptively moderate. Here's some ideas. Ability to:

1. make local-only posts
2. reject comments based on certain words
3. reject interactions based on age of account
4. lock comments
5. turn off account visibility during certain hours

These are all pre-emptive moderation ideas -- and they would make a tremendous difference for community safety on the Fediverse.

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