Tom Coates

New product strategy & development. Prev: BBC, Yahoo, Time Out, Nokia, Jawbone, Wired & Eero. Founded a couple of things too.

Twitter: Tom Coates (npub1u44…3ep6)
Website: http://plasticbag.org/

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Last Notes

2025-01-14 23:49:34 UTC

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it is not up to you to decide what I should be required to listen to or be subjected to “for the good of the world”. It is not up to you to decide that i should have to be open to replies or comments from someone who thinks people like me should be imprisoned or treated medically. It’s up to me who I listen to.

2025-01-14 23:48:16 UTC

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the only acceptable future is the same one that happens in the rest of the world. If you don’t want to live in the middle of people who hate you, you move. If you don’t want to read media from people who hate you, you don’t. If you don’t want to be subjected to awful speech, you go somewhere you don’t have to hear it.

2025-01-14 23:45:57 UTC

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no, you don’t, you propose one ecology, with one arbiter of what is acceptable, and anyone who doesn’t like it or feels subjected to harassment or abuse has to leave the public sphere. This is not a reasonable end to this story - excluding minorities from the public so that a vicious right can attack them. That’s an unacceptable future.

2025-01-14 23:39:38 UTC

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not at all. The right currently claims they don’t approve of blocks or censorship. Just choose an “uncensored” provider.

2025-01-14 23:26:23 UTC

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yes. We can give people the choice about whether they want to or do not, and we can respect that choice.

2025-01-14 23:10:22 UTC

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I think a lot of right wing people think I shouldn’t have the righr to not be exposed to their opinions as they simultaneously try and ban books from schools and trans people from public life. I say, go and have those awful views somewhere else. And I’ll have mine here and we’ll see gradually which kind of space normal Americans would rather be in.

2025-01-14 23:08:41 UTC

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I mean we’re in that world already I’m afraid. And I suspect the rise of social media has made that the case. I’m just going to suggest that putting me as a gay man who thinks trans people deserve rights and protections in the same space as vile anti-LGBTQA+ assholes who lie about us every day is not likely to result in more understanding and cross partisan friendship. I think you’re just wrong there.

2025-01-14 22:54:53 UTC

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I’m not saying it does constitute harassment. But as an individual in all social networks I am currently free to choose to block that person regardless. I think that’s fine. I think that’s my choice. This is no different. Why don’t you think I should have that choice?

2025-01-14 22:51:55 UTC

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meanwhile, let’s be clear what you’re saying. You’re saying that if I do not enjoy being on a space because it’s (from my perspective) toxic I should have two choices - put up with it, or leave the public space. The latter does not maximize communication or understanding. The former is intolerable. So there has to be another choice. The other choice is individuals with the freedom to choose whose speech to hear.

2025-01-14 22:49:48 UTC

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in the end we have a choice - whether we as individuals have a right to choose not to listen to people we don’t agree with or if we don’t. I think we do. And that such choices are the best ways to have people participate in the world comfortably.

2025-01-14 22:48:38 UTC

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you consider it harassment. I consider it harassment. They consider it part of their free speech and something I should be subjected to. You only have to look at Elon’s Twitter to see what he thinks free speech looks like. It looks like abuse.

2025-01-14 22:41:17 UTC

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Personally I think it’s totally reasonable and in fact desirable that every individual can choose what kind of content from other people they want to see or don’t want to see. So what’s the risk? That we might get more polarized and separate from one another?

2025-01-14 22:39:42 UTC

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So maybe an echo chamber isn’t so bad! Maybe if people can choose which echo chamber they want to be in - whether that’s one without people sending them dick pics or one that’s child friendly or one that doesn’t allow racist or homophobic abuse or one that’s entirely Christian - maybe they get to have their community without forcing everyone else to hear what they’re saying.

2025-01-14 22:38:14 UTC

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Is that an echo chamber? I don’t think so. But if it is, it seems to me to be an entirely reasonable echo chamber for me to want to live in. One where I can literally just express my views without someone screaming at me that I’m a pedo or child molestor or that I should be imprisoned or shot.

2025-01-14 22:37:19 UTC

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so what solution is there? If I want to be able to express myself freely without daily harassment and abuse? I think I should be able to put a filter on my conversations which stops me having to see awful bigoted people harassing me.

2025-01-14 22:36:23 UTC

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here’s the problem - I’m a gay man. I don’t think it’s wanting an echo chamber to just not be in a place where people threaten me with murder or call me “faggot”. I think that’s just baseline humanity. But the right *does* think that they should have the right to scream abuse in my face every day.

2025-01-14 22:23:17 UTC

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I think you’re talking here about mainstream vs the extreme edges. I think it’s clear most of the extreme edges are not federated with by the mainstream. I’m talking about a world where there’s a Twitter level space or a Parler or Truth Social and a Bluesky flavored space with lots of protections. If they’re large enough they’re unlikely to just ban the other entirely. But they may block a large number of users.

2025-01-14 22:04:23 UTC

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I don’t think that’s 100% right. I think the goal is almost precisely two or three large and many smaller providers differentiating on things like moderation. I can totally see one provider selling themselves as the “free speech” group and another as the “nice environment” group. I think the latter group would win, but as soon as there are options, people can vote with their feet.

2025-01-14 04:12:01 UTC

I think it’s important to keep reminding ourselves of the reasons we want decentralized social media or a Fediverse or anything like it to win. It’s because if implemented properly it makes the world a better place. It protects free speech, but it also makes it possible for people to choose the level of moderation they care about, to be in a place that corresponds with their values, and to feel safe in it.

2024-09-20 22:31:56 UTC

The world is very strange sometimes https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/09/cards-against-humanity-sues-spacex-alleges-invasion-of-land-on-us-mexico-border/

2024-08-24 21:29:42 UTC

@npub1sac…kcpe just want to say I loved your talk, if meant a lot to me, if affected me quite strongly. Also I’m working on trying to set up a thing with Evan Prodromou to make a better and more functional fediverse and I’d love to catch up about it sometime this weekend if you have a moment