digicana @digicana@social.privacytools.io

@emsenn @greyor I’m all for language changing over time, I’ve always been believed in descriptive or generative grammar, not prescriptive. Meanings of phrases do change and are corrupted. “Fake news” once began as a phrase to literally describe misleading and incorrect news, and has morphed into meaning the exact opposite. I get it. I don’t know that I’ve seen “public forum” weaponized to that extent but I don’t hang out in those places so I wouldn’t know.

@emsenn @greyor Maybe I’m not familiar with Mastodon etiquette? In most other public things I’ve participated in (Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, HN, FARK, Slashdot, mailing lists, web forums, Usenet, Fidonet, BBS groups, etc.) it’s not considered rude to join into public discussions regardless of if you were tagged or invited or whatever. Access to the forum was considered invitation... are Mastodon norms different?

@greyor @emsenn To be fair I think in general parlance (in my personal IRL circles, and also in 25 years of following online language/meme development), public forum is usually not seen as being offensive. But what emsenn pointed out is true - whenever the bin lid is lifted and the rats scurry away to the next hate forum, they do shout about free speech and public forums and censorship. They’ve newspeak’d the words. I’d rather not let them define things, though.

@emsenn @greyor At least in the small first world bubble I have experience with, I feel like somewhere along the line people on the internet and, even more frighteningly, people *in real life* have lost the art of actually conversing with each others about controversial things without seeing each other as enemies, rather than fellow humans. We’ve devolved into bands of hyper-aggression and hyper-sensitivity. I don’t know where it’s going but I doubt it’s anywhere good.

@emsenn @greyor I do think the term public forum has been severely hobbled by the Voat/toxic subreddit/chan crowd, but it did at one point have a meaning outside of “I can say whatever I want without consequence”. To me a public forum simply means that it’s public, not private, and that people are conversing - not that it’s an invitation or an excuse to be a jerk or to spew hate. But I expect people may disagree with me on a public forum and (non-hatefully) let me know.

@greyor @jonah @emsenn @bgcarlisle Yeah, ditto on blocking toxic things like racism. But in all social media I try not to block what I disagree with, as it’s hard enough to get out of the algorithmic bubble without reinforcing it yourself. It also lets you pick up on emerging trends; I remember as far back as 2012 seeing Stormfront start to infiltrate Reddit and thinking “oh man, this is not going to end good”. They got a little high five from Russia and now look where we are.

@greyor @jonah @emsenn @bgcarlisle I suppose everyone has a different idea of what mastodon is. In the middle of the bell curve, it’s basically a federated Twitter (in which public commentary and debate is expected) or like Facebook, in which an echo chamber is desired and usually enforced by individual users by blocking those who disagree (or through Facebook’s automatic algorithmic hiding). At the extremes, some people treat it like 8chan. I block the extremes.

@jonah @greyor @emsenn @bgcarlisle And the final interaction. https://wandering.shop/@hafnia/102690668637710835 Not sure why she’s mad at the instance, if she doesn’t like me that’s okie dokie, but that’s not the instance’s fault. She can easily block me if she wants, I doubt we will miss each other much.

@jonah @greyor @emsenn @bgcarlisle
https://wandering.shop/@hafnia/102690146614041999

@jonah @greyor @emsenn @bgcarlisle
https://wandering.shop/@hafnia/102690052000432503

@jonah @greyor @emsenn @bgcarlisle She’s just salty that people on other instances comment on her posts and ask her questions that suggest they don’t agree with her. She’s not being harassed, she just has very specific opinions and does not like others commenting on them if they disagree. I can point you to the specific threads if needed.