Gregory's Server
The idea of starter packs and introductions are nice and all, but then this happens:
"omg someone who self labels as a zionist put me on an antisemite list on bluesky" (real case, anonymized)
People added to such (publicly shareable) lists and starter packs (two different things) do not get notified at all! Furthermore, they cannot remove themselves from such packs. Yes, you can report, but that might be too late.
Where is the informed consent? Why is it not a requirement to give consent before one shows up on lists. Why can consent to inclusion not be withdrawn? I mean, this stuff is trivial to do in a centralized app developed by a company with a lot of staff and millions in funding. Yet, it doesn't happen.
Move fast and break someone's life.
The idea of starter packs and introductions are nice and all, but then this happens:
"omg someone who self labels as a zionist put me on an antisemite list on bluesky" (real case, anonymized)
People added to such (publicly shareable) lists and starter packs (two different things) do not get notified at all! Furthermore, they cannot remove themselves from such packs. Yes, you can report, but that might be too late.
@rra I don't think I've seen a single crowdsourced blocklist that doesn't have at least one trans woman on it put there for no clear reason purely to ostracize her.
Starter packs might seem like a more positive idea on the surface, but it is also a form of forced hypervisibility and that's already an issue that queer people have to deal with a lot.
It might sound like a bit of a stretch, but putting people in starter packs without their consent reminds me a bit of this habit in publishing and bookselling of putting women and queer people of all genders in the "Young Adult" category regardless of if it's actually the age-range they are writing for. It's putting an author in front of an audience of young people, making them responsible for guiding them at the cost of potentially watering down their expression to fit that category or judging them for failing to do so.
Of course, the audience for a starting pack isn't just young people, but there's a similar dynamic of "here's a bunch of people who are just figuring things out, so you better be on your best behaviour and if you aren't we have an excuse to drive you out of the community for failing an audience you didn't ask for nor wanted."
@rra I don't think I've seen a single crowdsourced blocklist that doesn't have at least one trans woman on it put there for no clear reason purely to ostracize her.
Starter packs might seem like a more positive idea on the surface, but it is also a form of forced hypervisibility and that's already an issue that queer people have to deal with a lot.
@rra and people think that fedi instance fighting is bad, wait for the starter pack and block list drama to explode...
@rra
Bluesky's thing before Starter Packs was "Lists" which were almost solely used to put people on an insulting list discoverable through Clearsky as you blocked them.