Interesting Links for 04-12-2022

[andrewducker]

1. Who wants to give a tummy rub to a cute little kitty?

(tags:cats video cute leopard )

2. What did Susan Hussey say? Royal race row explained (with transcript)

(tags:racism UK royalty )

3. Twitter now reinstating neo-nazis

(tags:ElonMusk Nazis Twitter OhForFucksSake )

4. "I Was Wrong About Mastodon" (and moderation and scaling)

(tags:mastodon socialnetworking )

5. Labour's manipulation of selection contests reveals its emptiness of purpose

(tags:labour OhForFucksSake )

6. The Excel World Championship Is the Internet at Its Best

(tags:Excel spreadsheet competition )

7. EU Leader Uses Mastodon to Tell Elon Musk How Twitter Needs to Be Regulated

(tags:Twitter Mastodon regulation Europe ElonMusk )

8. How British colonialism killed 100 million Indians in 40 years

(tags:UK India )

9. 53% of Britons are non-religious. Who are they and what do they believe?

(tags:religion UK atheism society )

10. Learning to play the piano improves people's ability to process sights and sounds

(tags:piano music psychology )

11. Female monkeys prioritise friends and actively reduce social circle as they age

(tags:monkey friendship family )

12. UK to let safety laws lapse. Because sovereignty.

(tags:safety UK Europe law OhForFucksSake )

Comments

[ninetydegrees]

#4 Wil Wheaton notably experienced something that contradicts some of the things said in this post. That was 4 years ago so maybe things are different now, but, then, Mastodon admins could not deal and *would* not deal with the kind of hate/harassment tactics which are used on Twitter and other social media.

I do believe you can have well moderated, friendly communities on Mastodon but it will work up to a point. If Twitter-like mobs decide to attack I don't see how Mastodon can fare better. They don't have better tools AFAIK. And I find the idea that moving to a different instance would stop harassment or hate speech very naïve.

[andrewducker]

There are already examples of instances being defederated because they were hosting people doing attacks and refusing to moderate them.

Hopefully this will continue.

[mellowtigger]

The huge instances (mstdn.social, if not also mastodon.online) are also threatened with defederation because their moderation isn't scaling upward fast enough. That's not a problem of policy but resources. Brandolini's Law can affect any instance of Mastodon, even the ones leading the calls for defederation. I think Mastodon is better technologically than Twitter, but the fact remains that zergs are an effective tactic. The problem can be automated, but Mastodon doesn't really have the automation to moderate yet, and that's a long term problem waiting to happen.

[fub]

It all comes down to the admin of the instance, and the culture among admins seems to be more geared towards scaling the infrastructure rather than their moderation with the new influx of users on their instances.
The network will allow anyone to contact anyone else, unless it's explicitly closed off by the admin -- but by then the damage will have been done. There are blocklists that an admin can use to defederate from specific instances, but those are not popular in certain corners (I was literally told that my use of a blocklist was "inexcusable" and I should "go back to Twitter"). And it is all manual work for the admin.

Pay attention to who says that Mastodon is so friendly -- it's all white, privileged people. Marginalized people are still marginalized on Mastodon.

[mtbc]

12. is exactly the kind of move I feared. ): I wonder if Labour's platform may include reintroduction, I'll watch with interest.

Point 7

[dewline]

Musk has already shuttered the Brussels office in reply to the EU's concerns about the GDPR. I think he's making it clear that he will govern himself according to his...cruelty-maximizing interpretation...of the US First Amendment, and by no other interpretation of any nation's laws. Or those of any coalition of nations, for that matter.

He's choosing to be in the wrong in some of the worse ways.

Re: Point 7

[jducoeur]

I think he's making it clear that he will govern himself according to his...cruelty-maximizing interpretation...of the US First Amendment, and by no other interpretation of any nation's laws. Or those of any coalition of nations, for that matter.

It's sad to realize that this is the logical outcome of a naive, maximalist, true-believer interpretation of The Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace.

I remember thinking at the time that it probably wasn't going to be that easy, but few of us understood just how badly off-base it would prove to be. Most of us have learned better since then, but Musk seems not to have...

[cmcmck]

9. Others of us are religious (I'm a Quaker) but don't make a huge fuss about it when filling in government forms- I think a lot of people both religious and non religious were fooled the first year they brought those questions in.

'Won't get foooled again'.............

[alithea]

I always think that if you care about a minority religion, you should always shout about it on government forms. I always put myself down as pagan despite being basically non-practising these days, because for example, I had a pagan handfasting as a legal wedding ceremony in Scotland and want other people to continue to have the option available to them.

[aldabra]

1. Cuts out just before the leopard eats the offered hand. Shame.

[andrewducker]

But nothing bad every happened when someone rubbed a cats belly!

[calimac]

2. This is the first I've seen of a transcript, and confirms my impression that an irreducable part of the cringeworthiness of this was the third-degree badgering, beyond the racism and condescension.

10. Despite my love of music, I gave up on trying to play the piano very quickly. It was like trying to pat your stomach and rub your head at the same time.

[threemeninaboat]

10. Oh that is super interesting. I just started piano 7 weeks ago through an app: Simply Piano and I'm doing really well.
I tried to learn other instruments before: flute, guitar, I worked for the symphony; but this time it is sticking.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes. A first "And where do you come from" is understandable. Badgering someone until it's clear that what you mean is "You're not from round here, tell me where you're really a person of" is much worse.

[alithea]

Yeah, I saw a bystander to the incident interviewed on Channel 4 news and her point was that asking someone where they are from is generally fine*, the racism is when you refuse to accept 'London' (for example) as answer because the person isn't white.



*Other's mileage may vary here of course - I know people who hate being asked that because people only ever do it to them in a racist way.

[threemeninaboat]

I'm now 7 weeks into piano playing and SO MUCH radio music sucks. Lots of it did before but now it's even worse.

[andrewducker]

I'm intrigued if it's the quality of the music, the recording, or something else!

[threemeninaboat]

I don't yet have the vocabulary for that, I'll get back to you.

[andrewducker]

Good luck!

(I've noticed with many musician friends that once they realise that some piece of music is actually quite simple to play they lose interest in it, even just to listen to. But I wasn't sure if that was what you meant. Happy to wait and see!)