Mad Villain

Creative, Founder, Fedi Legend, They/He, Chaotic Good

👋🏾: https://roiskinda.cool
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/are0h
Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/are0h
h.i.: https://h-i.works

Public Key

npub12wrdxk09gc2gvgyxctwffcy8cfm0eyuxaj08v4h9xpvng9yns7fsjmazeq

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs98pknt8j5v9yxyzrv9hy5uzruyahujwrwe8nk2mjnqkf5zjfc0ycpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds9xyr8y

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub12wrdxk09gc2gvgyxctwffcy8cfm0eyuxaj08v4h9xpvng9yns7fsjmazeq

Show more details

Last Notes

2025-07-20 21:46:45 UTC

This is pretty perfect. https://mas.to/@angiebaby/114887527337553611

2025-07-20 18:24:32 UTC

I’ve been thinking about giving Kagi a try but I’m not all the way on board with subscribing to a search engine.
How do people that have used it feel about it?

2025-07-16 00:54:07 UTC

- reply

If it sounds like I’m annoyed it’s because I am.
I see so many folks talking so much bullshit about how they ‘support’ queer folks but don’t to shit but talk.
They don’t give to any mutual aid efforts, or post info so folks can’t learn more about how to help or even boost any of the many *brilliant* queer minds on the fedi that eloquently speak about their experiences and bless us by sharing.
They want to pretend to be advocates but they don’t do anything but talk shit, mostly about Black and Brown folks specifically.
Right now, a lot of need help, so it’s not the time for bullshit.
Either you’re helping or you’re not.
And a quite a few folks are making massive threads talking about nonsense to try and distract from the fact they aren’t doing anything of note.

2025-07-16 00:31:55 UTC

In some circles, I’m ’transphobic’ because I will not ignore the anti-Blackness that permeates many queer spaces on the fedi, but I’m fine with that.
I’m not going to abandon Black queer folks to perform progressiveness to make some unserious people comfortable.
I actually want to solve challenges, not pretend I do so I can have a bunch of acronyms in my bio that I don’t really care about.

2025-07-12 15:17:14 UTC

- reply

The latest example I can think of is the situation around fosstodon, an instance known for housing bad actors, poor moderation and giving bigots administrative privileges to use the instance as a vector to perpetuate their biases. And they’ve defended this behavior on multiple occasions.
While there was some conversation around their bigotry, it died down pretty quickly and still operates as a place that promotes hatefulness.
In contrast is the relentless attention paid to me and #TheBadSpace that has been an effective tool in mitigating harm. There has been wave after wave of harassment, lies and stalking that has become normalized in many circles in the fedi.
There are entire communities dedicated to hating me and the project by extension that you rarely, if ever, see applied to actual places of harm that have a demonstrable history of platform and promoting hate.
This is a common anti-Black behavior in the fedi and it is practiced everyday and it is responsible for killing so many opportunities to diversify this space.

2025-07-12 14:58:13 UTC

One of the most common forms of racism and hate in the fedi is hyper focus on Black and Brown folks to ignore or cover for hateful behavior.
My work has exposed me to some truly disgusting behavior on the fedi. There are actual bad people who have committed themselves to harmful and really gross dehumanizing behavior. Just the other day, I had to deal with a white nationalist trying to gaslight me into thinking they were ‘reasonable.’
I find there is an overemphasis on policing the timelines of Black and Brown folks to ignore or even protect the actual perpetuators of harm in this space.
There is an expectation constantly being projected onto Black and Brown folks to be perfect in every action and thought we have in this space to be ‘worthy’ of civility that is not applied to any other group of people, especially white folks.
This, of course, is a pillar of white supremacy culture.
https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/one-right-way.html
When people say this space is anti-Black, it’s not only because of the obvious hatefulness we see. That’s just a small part of it.
The larger piece is that there is an enforced standard for Black folks that is not applied to anyone else.
That act is racism being reinforced by people across the political spectrum.

2025-07-10 18:46:09 UTC

And again I can’t help but notice the hypocrisy of the fedi.
If I made fun of people for seeking mutual aid, I’d be burned at the stake.
But all a known bad actor, who happens to be white of course, has to do is give a lukewarm apology and it’s all good?
Fedi not shedding its anti-Black reputation any time soon.

2025-07-05 15:19:15 UTC

A lot of exchanges in the fedi would go a lot smoother if people had a basic level of respect and civility for others.
Many folks who claim to be ‘progressive’ want decorum and restraint in response to their entitled and hostile behavior and throw temper tantrums when the they are treated like the insufferable assholes they present themselves to be.
It’s ok to disagree. It’s ok to have strong feelings.
But you cannot act like a raging dickhead and expect civility and respect in response.
It’s not that hard to be a decent person to strangers online.
If one has a problem with that low bar, their issues extend way past whatever topic they are talking about.

2025-06-29 15:46:15 UTC

“Death to the IDF” seems like a pretty sensible response.

2025-06-28 20:12:52 UTC

Remember how I said I wanted to see how hard folks go at Fosstodon, which has a history of not only platforming bigots, but placing them in leadership roles?
Now, juxtapose that effort with the relentless, years long effort people in the fedi engage in to go after Black folks. Compare the meek criticism of a place known for protecting bad actors versus the consistent hate campaign against something like #TheBadSpace.
See that difference?
That’s how racism works and protects itself.
Actual bigots causing harm get way less attention and heat than the targets of their bigotry.
I want people to remember this scenario when people dismiss the fedi as a viable destination for every day folks.

2025-06-27 14:39:08 UTC

Balkanization needs to be talked about as the Supreme Court again rubber stamps Trump’s lawlessness.
We really need to talk about how the US as a concept has failed and how we need to break a way from people who would rather see the world burn than not be hateful pieces of shit.

2025-06-23 20:15:28 UTC

It’s funny how all the racist sex offenders are endorsing Cuomo over Mamdani in NYC clearly because he’s just white, but we’re not supposed to notice.

2025-06-16 15:05:02 UTC

White Europeans trying to ‘argue’ with me about the US as if they know more than me based on their anecdotes and confirmation bias is hilarious.
They are too bigoted and entitled to realize they are out of their depth.

2025-06-15 23:31:44 UTC

- reply

The objective reality is that of the voting population is the US, most vote for bigots. And the largest demographic of people who don’t vote, which is white people, are ok with the white vote going to bigots.
This is not speculation or guessing. This is affirmed by decades of voting data.
It is far more likely that the voting public will either vote for a bigot or not vote at all, knowing this allows bigots to win.
It’s just history, folks.

2025-06-15 23:19:53 UTC

Ok, yes, I get it people want to be optimistic about the protests this weekend.
But you cannot remove the reason of why people are protesting in the first place.
And that reason is that a significant number of US citizens voted for a racist tyrant for the second time to be President.
Thats all there is to it. There is no reason to believe the political views of these people will change because their ability to ignore injustice has been taken away.
Because if people truly felt as strongly as they are performing, ICE would not be able to operate.
But here we are.
Get angry, get upset, call me whatever, but what is happening in the US isn’t magic.
Oppression happens because people get up and choose it everyday.

2025-06-15 05:12:33 UTC

I’m just not interested in performative measures.
Because at least half of the people walking around in circles today voted for Trump and are ‘protesting’ to make themselves feel better.
Holla at me when they start pulling people out of ICE detention centers and making it clear that’s not gonna fly.

2025-05-05 14:26:39 UTC

Stop letting bigots and sociopaths tell you what’s possible.

2025-05-05 12:42:29 UTC

I have zero interest in Activity Pub vs ATPro debates.
If it can be used to give people digital autonomy and the ability to define their own spaces, I’m a fan.
I’m not loyal to any particular protocol.
I’m loyal to idea of people using what ever tools they need to get free.

2025-04-23 18:45:51 UTC

A lot of white folks on here like my takes about technology and the direction of the fedi and all that and that’s cool. I like talking about that stuff.
What a lot of white people don’t realize and are made uncomfortable by when they find out is how a lot of my thoughts are informed by radical Black politics.
Not liberalism. Not leftism. Not Marxism.
But rather the rigorous scholarship of brilliant minds that had to navigate the horror and ugliness of unchecked hate and colonialism. The people that gave their blood and bones to give us the information and context we needed to survive the madness of white supremacy.
I push hard because what I do is built on the knowledge and experiences of people that sacrificed their lives to get and pass on.
I’m not here to build a brand or get a cool tech job or even to be liked (although I hope you do. I’m actually pretty cool).
I’m here to try to use my skills and talents to contribute to us getting free.
That thought is a core reason why I am still here.

2025-04-20 16:34:47 UTC

I’m just not going to give up on technology because some white sociopath who stumbled into running a major platform is trying to dictate to us what is and isn’t possible.

2025-04-20 15:46:54 UTC

Yeah, this was pretty disgusting by Polygon and they weren’t that great to begin with.
This was a blatant attempt to center a rich white dude on the success of a very good and very Black film.
That’s just fucking gross. https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:sqhk2ksk2hgrgf7tfdztchls/post/3lnavtn2b5s2a

2025-04-18 14:49:20 UTC

And just to give a bit more context to what Eva is saying here, fedilore is very clear their gripes aren’t even about #TheBadSpace itself, but rather the visibility of Black folks trying to create community safety networks.
Here, they openly admit they’d have no problem with the project if they didn’t have to see it and and if Black folks kept quiet about it in our own circles, as if they own the fedi.
There’s a tenant of white supremacy culture that speaks specifically about white people’s need for comfort and how they try to enforce that in space that quite simply do not belong to them.
There’s zero reason to make this kind of statement unless one is fixated on what Black folks do in the fedi because one doesn’t want to see us here.
They are openly arguing for segregation.
Eva is correct when they call them racist because all their methodology can easily be connected to white supremacist ideology. https://blackqueer.life/@tillshadeisgone/114358608495458766
https://link.storjshare.io/raw/jx23hy3tnuwjxm4jkbrqjy4aweiq/for-masto/media_attachments/files/114/359/517/742/155/061/original/4e216df7b63642bb.png

2025-04-09 15:23:38 UTC

- reply

When I say white people, I’m not talking about how much pigmentation one has in their skin.
I’m talking about people who have adopted white supremacy as their core ideology and the lens they use to view the world.
Even as ‘radical’ as the fedi claims to be, we see fingerprints of this culture everyday in the behaviors and actions of folks that claim to be progressive.
People don’t attack, harass and lie about me for no reason. People who do this see me as a threat to the white digital ethnostate that they want the fedi to be, despite whatever hashtag tags and labels they have in their bio.
White supremacy doesn’t want any of us to feel safe.
Just keep this in mind when you folks who I don’t talk to attempt to disparage and abuse me despite claiming to be against those things.
They are engaging in this behavior for a very specific reason.

2025-04-09 15:04:07 UTC

- reply

Ok, let’s get historical for a second.
The types of tactics and strategies we see specifically lobbed at Black and Brown people have a specific point of origin.
When people say I ‘fantasize about violence,’ this harkens back to a very old racist trope about Black folks being dangerous and primitive.
When people call me a scammer and a grifter, that’s a specific attempt to devalue the contributions of Black folks to society and try to contextualize them as worthless.
When people get angry because I wont apologize to my harassers, that’s speaks to this expectation that I should be compliant and subservient even in the face of dehumanizing behavior.
All of these efforts are to enforce white supremacy culture.
The conversation around moderation and safety is making it difficult for bigots to behave in hateful ways and escape consequences because we are talking and sharing knowledge.
This is the antithesis of white supremacy that thrives when we are divided.
And we know it’s an attempt to enshrine white supremacist culture in the fedi because of how specific these attacks are against Black and Brown people in this space.
https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/what-is-it.html

2025-04-09 14:41:02 UTC

I just think it’s funny how people that have been harassing me for years get so bent out of shape when I say if I was a different kind of person, I’d handle their constant antagonization very differently because I have some tools and options at my disposal.
They have been using the most racist (we’re going to put him in his place!) and aggressive (we’re going to war!) rhetoric against me for awhile now, ha, but the problem is when I say I could defend myself in ways you can’t come back from, THAT’S the problem.
But the entire scenario speaks to the delusion of whiteness.
White folks can invoke all kind of hostility and violence against their targets, but if their target returns that energy, that’s when the use of violence becomes a problem.
That’s just plain old racism. The kind used to justify wiping out Black communities like Black Wall Street and Seneca Village because white folks felt Black folks didn’t have the right to exist.
These are the same attitudes that guide the actions of people who say they are against harassment but do it every day.

2025-04-08 15:56:24 UTC

#TheBadSpace has an appeals process. Outside of me making safe spaces for listed instances to talk to the places that have them blocked, the process is centered around listed instances making amends and meaningful changes to the satisfaction of an instance that has them moderated.
So it’s not about what I think about a specific instance but what the community thinks.
I think that’s why no instance has ever applied for an appeal.
They don’t want to face the consequences for their behavior, so they harass me in an attempt to delegitimize the project.
But it’s never been about my opinions and perspectives. My blocklist isn’t even a part of the data set. I don’t personally block any instance on TBS. That’s not how it works.
I understand some people don’t like how I deal with bigots and that’s fine, but I made it a point to make sure my views are not central to the project.
TBS is about the community, not the singular view of one person.
That’s the beauty of it.

2025-04-06 00:54:20 UTC

If there is one political objective truth about the US, it’s that white folks have never used their collective political power for social good.
Ever.

2025-03-27 16:19:48 UTC

- reply

Oh yeah, but that’s been happening for awhile. That’s why we are seeing such a gross shift in politics.
But the point of US media isn’t to talk about what’s actually happening.
It’s to keep us hopeless so capitalism can retain its grasp on our lives.
What is happening right now cannot be sustained, but bigots rely on shock and awe to get us to stop pushing forward.

2025-03-27 16:10:40 UTC

- reply

It’s not about hope. Progress is inevitable.
The people that benefit from is not progressing just want to make it hurt so we stop.
But we’ve seen this playbook before.

2025-03-27 16:03:14 UTC

I know people are scared and it’s understandable, but think about it like this.
Chopping down government institutions and snatching kids off the street is not a sane response to the direction the globe is going. It’s completely nonsensical.
As afraid as a lot of us are of what is happening right now, it could easily be argued that that the wealthy folks that control governments and media houses are more afraid of us as we realize the lies they are using to build our society on.
White supremacy and colonialism are in full panic mode right now because they don’t know what else to do to stop the progress we’ve carved out of granite for the last two decades.
Fascism is unsustainable in an interconnected world.
What we are seeing is a last ditch effort to restore what died a long time ago

2025-03-25 15:52:16 UTC

It may surprise some people, but I actually do make it a habit to read about criticisms of #TheBadSpace.
I dismiss most of them because 1. most of them are made in bad faith and are a result of me checking some bigot and 2. they tend to ignore the harassment that was the reason for the project getting created.
I know TBS is a point of discussion in many communities because people worry about its intentions, which is fine. Not only that, but I think that’s a fair point to consider.
But it is impossible to have an honest discussion about the project when one simply ignores the corrosive harassment that happens all the time and even in some cases, tries to gaslight targeted communities by saying they are lying.
As the person that built it, I’m the target of a lot of people who don’t want their to be a consequence for their behavior, so they try to frame as a number of anti-Black tropes, which, ironically invalidates what they say anyway.
And I’ll admit I’m a hard bastard when it comes to safety and moderation. When you’ve seen and experienced what I have, your tolerance for nonsense is nonexistent.
But I will say very few people who have walls of text to say have ever taken the challenge to engage me in good faith about the project and why it exists. I can count on one hand the number of people that have done this and have fingers left.
In my estimation, most criticism of TBS lives by denying the reality of people it is built to protect. It has to downplay the reality of what is happening to justify one’s hate of the project.
I’m open to talking to anyone about why I built and continue to work on TBS. But what I’m not going to do is entertain bigots who want to downplay the level of targeted harassment that happens on the fedi.
That’s the part that pisses them off the most.

2025-03-14 18:24:29 UTC

- reply

I’ll give a personal example.
One of the goals I have is to have a multi story building for the org I am putting together.
There will be a floor for events, one for housing, another for folks that want a space to work and a roof top garden.
I also want it to house services for the community, such as mental health, comprehensive education from a number of disciplines, healthcare, etc.
I want to have these styles of building in every major population center so they are hubs for community to figure out ways for us to lessen or our reliance on the state and build reliable networks that we can depend on, no matter what government agencies do.
I want to normalize progressing without having to make compromises with entities that want to exploit our skills because they don’t have them.

2025-03-14 17:57:21 UTC

Hm.
I think a lot of people in the fedi know what they are against, or what they are supposed to be against, but not many know what they actually want.
Yes, we should talk about Trump and his incompetent administration and the harm they can cause, but it’s also a great time to engage your imagination.
What does your radical vision for the world look like? Does it exist?

2025-03-04 15:23:00 UTC

My curiosity about the fedi will never be satisfied until I see what it’s like to have intentional tools here not written by mediocre bigots who want to imitate their favorite tech sociopath.
I think the fedi can be much more than a collection of half assed applications that are poor copies of centralized platforms.
Much more.

2025-02-27 18:49:24 UTC

- reply

#TheBadSpace is a specific point of contention because it’s one of the first systems that gives memory to the fedi, so people can identify who engages in this behavior, whether they be right or left leaning.
TBS is agnostic. It doesn’t care how you identify. It cares about patterns of behavior towards vulnerable communities.
And what it reveals is that many spaces that claim care about safety and equality actually don’t, and only make these claims for the sake of perception or communal harmony or collaboration.
It is attacked relentlessly because it reveals the ugly truth that many places are much more aligned with white supremacy than they will admit.
And as difficult as this is, the fedi will always be viewed as a niche alternative until we develop effective tools to identifying these spaces and give the means to permanently disconnect from them.

2025-02-27 18:41:45 UTC

Here’s one thing I do know.
White people on the fedi are purposely antagonistic to Black and Brown folks. It’s not because they are ignorant or unaware of their tone. They know are being hostile because of their dislike of Black voices.
They admit this is private all the time to their peers all the time. I’ve seen the conversations.
They do it because they know other white people will see the hostile response ignore the initial comment that instigated it.
That’s how racism operates. It depends on preconceived notions to operate.
And no matter how a white person identifies politically, they all know how this works and will leverage it at the drop of a hat when they feel threatened in situations they instigate most of the time.
This insidiousness is a big part of fedi culture, which explains why so many people choose centralized platforms over this space.

2025-02-26 18:45:50 UTC

This is the insanity of whiteness.
They just elected a bunch of bitches that don’t believe in and have demonized vaccines, but when there are consequences for their actions, they quickly run to the shit they were ardently against.
This is a microcosm of why the US keeps going in circles and progress is so got damn slow. https://med-mastodon.com/@bicmay/114071470166106345

2025-02-24 19:04:28 UTC

Read this. https://mograph.social/@dilmandila/114060184692464292

2025-02-07 18:04:29 UTC

This is really disgusting.
Again, if decentralized project maintainers are going to have the same values and attitudes of the sociopaths that run centralized platforms, what’s the point? https://mastodon.art/@Curator/113961394402916501

2025-02-07 01:44:53 UTC

All the stuff you like about the US was made by Black and Brown folks.

2025-02-06 18:38:42 UTC

- reply

People really just get on here and talk just to be talking.
Folks think because they read an article in the New York Post they have the bandwidth to ‘debate’ folks that have years of scholarship in that area.
And get pissed when you treat their nonsense like nonsense

2025-02-03 15:18:46 UTC

Choosing not to use any US based hosting for any of my projects has turned out to be one of better decisions I’ve made over the last decade. https://fediscience.org/@ma_delsuc/113936442439996340

2025-02-03 15:15:26 UTC

- reply

Damn. Hang in there, bro.

2025-01-25 17:51:26 UTC

- reply

In my experience, folks that have the most hashtags and acronyms in their bios that denote progressive leanings are usually the least likely people to be actually progressive.
It’s usually all for show and just wanting to present a persona that doesn’t exist offline.

2025-01-21 15:23:02 UTC

*watches white people go into full panic mode concerning issues they were warned about repeatedly for decades*

2025-01-21 00:56:59 UTC

This racist bullshit is an example of what someone not white would have to deal with constantly if they are hired for to work for Mastodon.
Will Masto leadership come down hard on comments like this and protect the people that work for them? Will they make a stand to make sure nonsense like this is not tolerated?
Their history not only says no, but they would reprimand anyone who called this obvious bigoted nonsense what it is. https://infosec.exchange/@james_inthe_box/113861997936015575

2025-01-19 17:49:29 UTC

And of course, here come white people trying to doom and gloom me like I didn’t grow up Black and in the US.
Any horrible situation white people think up has already been experienced by Black and Brown folks multiple times.
White people are just feeling a way because they never thought it would affect them, so they are trying to spread their fear and panic to us.
Ha, but we’ve been here for awhile, homie.

2025-01-18 17:20:19 UTC

I’ve said this many times before.
This idea that it’s normal on the internet to harass and be hostile to people you don’t know is false. It’s just a part of colonialism trying to condition us to believe the world is as it defines it.
And that’s a bold faced lie.
There’s a reason I contextualize strangers that try to engage me with as much antagonism and disrespect as possible as racists.
Because there is literally no other reason to talk to someone you don’t know in that manner.
Everyone on the planet knows this. Only bigots refuse to acknowledge this basic truth.

2025-01-17 15:16:37 UTC

- reply

US officials will continue to spit in the face of US citizens because they know most won’t do shit.
White Americans are the most docile and willfully ignorant on the planet because they will believe whatever you tell them if you blame Black and Brown people as the root cause. They will not question any obvious lie or falsehood if you baste it with racism and hate.
It’s a big part of the reason Twitter was destroyed and they are banning TikTok. The imagination of white America must be controlled even if causes catastrophic harm to the populace because it is white Americans that will violently reinforce the delusions the oligarchy keeps belching out to distract us from the reality that they are the cause of all of our social ills.
Racism is the single greatest political tool in US history because it has been wildly successful in getting oppressed people to not only reinforce their own oppression, but celebrate it as patriotic.

2025-01-17 15:00:38 UTC

The thing is the US government knows the citizenry will never join together because the greatest unifying trait in the US is racism.
White people know Black and Brown folks are right about the brutal inequality and discrimination in the US. They know because they contribute to it everyday while they lie to themselves that they are not the problem.
Politicians and billionaires could be brought to their knees today. And it wouldn’t be that hard because they don’t have any skills. However, this will not happen because of the petty spite of white Americans who do not want anyone else to have access to larger share of crumbs than they do.
So yeah, people in the US will bitch and moan about this or that policy, but white America will never confront the reason oligarchs simply laugh at them and ignore them while they make living conditions worse.
They know white people will always choose racism and hate over literally their own lives.
Every. Single. Time.

2025-01-16 18:47:20 UTC

I hate it people’s still feel the need to use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. It bother me that these platforms are still in play because they are trash.
But until we build apps that outclass them, that’s going to be the state of play.
So I’d rather put energy into building a first class experience and governance policies than communities can adapt to replace watered down corporate experience as opposed to harassing people because they aren’t using the social app my morals deem acceptable.
Yes, the work is fucking hard, but that’s where we are.
The table is set. We just gotta serve something people want to eat.

2025-01-13 15:39:47 UTC

So if transparency is important, what did Mastodon’s leadership talk to Facebook about when they met?
It’s fine. I’ll wait. https://mastodon.social/@Mastodon/113820526480156595

2024-12-05 23:42:30 UTC

- reply

No, no one has contacted me.
I’ve tried to work with them many times in the past and have just been ignored.
It’s one of the reasons I started my own project.

2024-12-05 23:02:31 UTC

If we’re being completely honest, Mastodon already getting so many donations for saying they’re thinking about hiring a safety lead or whatever while folks like me who have been working on safety tools that have been proven to work still have anxiety about paying rent proves two things about the fedi.
The first is that the fedi already has resources to be self sufficient.
And the second is that unless those faces making tools and platforms are white, they will, for the most part, not be given access to those resources despite doing better work.
Which, again, proves the fedi’s problem has never been technology.
Ever.

2024-12-05 17:16:48 UTC

I’ve studied World War 2 quite a bit over the years and one thing I can’t get out of my mind after reading the horror stories of people who have lost loved ones from United Healthcare denying their claims is how much the polices of that organization resemble Nazi eugenics.
Denying one third of claims is a staggering number for a company that size. It is planned, calculated and executed.
In any other context, this would be viewed as an atrocity.

2024-12-02 17:22:45 UTC

All of these corporate versus open source morality blatherings fall flat when the high profile open source projects in question are trying to emulate and be friendly with corporate entities.
Very few people are being honest about that specific point when it comes to this entire Bluesky vs Mastodon convo.
They are not as diametrically opposed as people think.

2024-12-02 03:05:23 UTC

Does anyone still get those scam emails that say I hacked your computer and I got video of you self-pleasuring and they are going to release them if you don’t pay something?
I wish they would hurry up so I can launch my onlyfans career.
Ha, fundraising is hard, yo.

2024-12-01 22:51:26 UTC

Bluesky is confirming everything I've said over the years about safety and moderation tools, despite all of us knowing it is a centralized, VC-backed platform.
They don't even have those tools all the way right and it took them a minute to get the little they have usable.
Safety and moderation is THE feature people want, not an afterthought to be considered eventually.
Most people don't care about open-source morality and navel-gazing if the tools are shit.
The arrogance of open-source developers trying and failing to tell folks what they want is the biggest obstacle to the fedi becoming more than mediocre devs trying to live out their tech leader fantasies.

2024-12-01 15:09:07 UTC

If Mastodon really cared about trust and safety, the would deal with the bigots on their own server that have been targeting Black folks for years with harassment because they know that instance is a safe haven for them.
It’s hard to believe this is serious effort when the flagship instance of Mastodon is neither safe nor trustworthy.

2024-11-26 19:10:12 UTC

- reply

I’m here for the long haul because ultimately I feel optimistic about the fedi because we haven’t really tapped into what’s possible as most projects are just imitating centralized platforms. It’s still the beginning of the beginning.
But many devs when given total freedom to create literally anything are choosing to emulate the people they admire, which is usually some incompetent white dude that had the fortune to get resources they didn’t have or earn.
The current state of the fedi is an undeniable reminder of the limits of that kind of thinking, highlighted by many open source projects trying to copy features from Bluesky to ‘compete’ rather than leveraging the freedom Activity Pub gives to make projects that corporate spaces cannot imitate.
But we gotta be honest about why many voices here feel the need to be comparable to centralized platforms while simultaneously claiming to be alternatives with less features, centralized and unilateral leadership and unending understanding and empathy for truly awful communities.
Are we really trying to better or just trying open source oligarchy?
Because the problem has never been has never been tech.

2024-11-26 18:56:33 UTC

I can say I’ve been working on better fedi tooling for years, so a big part of the ‘what the fedi needs’ is disingenuous to me.
I’ve been saying it for awhile and I’ve been attacked, demonized, DDOS’d a couple of times, ignored and vilified in a million different ways.
The question isn’t what does the fedi need.
The question is why doesn’t large swathes of the fedi want to improve.
We know the problem and the solutions. They are just not being acted on.
That’s why I just do my own thing and work to find like minded people.
Because folks have been using the same excuses about the same problems for years while empowering the folks who exacerbate and perpetuate the very solvable issues the fedi has.

2024-11-19 16:53:36 UTC

- reply

Also considering the inevitable enshitification of Bluesky, it seems like there’s a pathway to give people the option to save their content through their API, giving folks who use it an escape hatch.
That data can be transformed to any format, so imagine fedi platforms being able to consume that data.
In that context, platform collapse isn’t an existential threat, but rather taking the time to make a few clicks to move their digital selves somewhere else.
Hell, that wouldn’t even be that hard to build, but the peace of mind it would give folks would be paradigm shifting.

2024-11-19 16:26:17 UTC

- reply

Of course there are some things I don’t like about the way Bluesky handles follows lists and moderation, as they are still taking no responsibility for moderation on their flagship product and those lists cannot exist outside of the platform so they can be disseminated and imported externally.
But the framework for that type of data portability already exists on #TheBadSpace, so making that happen outside of Bluesky wouldn’t be that difficult. And I already have plans to extend the functionality of TBS to include specific accounts in addition to instances.
The challenge is to get platforms in the fedi to integrate this feature set into the experience, which has been an uphill battle to say the least.
But it is a confirmation for me that my premise concerning nuanced tooling would be a significant step in making the fedi competitive with any platform and put it in position to surpass whatever comes out because it’s not limited to a centralized context.
Which gets me even more excited for the possibilities of #Fipamo. I know a limited version of my idea works at scale.
I don’t know if the bigger fedi projects will adapt, but the direction they need to go has never been clearer.
Ha, but that’s why I’m building my own thing.

2024-11-19 16:06:50 UTC

So being on Bluesky has confirmed #TheBadSpace is exactly what the fediverse needs to progress.
Seeing people create and share their lists for who to block and who to follow is a significant upgrade to the experience that allows communities to decide who and what they want to see.
Compostable moderation was an idea I came up with a couple of years ago and The Bad Space is a proof of concept of that idea. While the fedi has been aggressively resistant to any curation tooling, Bluesky resoundingly proves that it’s a significant feature that people want.
Seeing a version of the spec I wrote concerning a streamlined onboarding process that allowed people to choose their blocklists as they join and methodology for those lists to automatically update in app is a big affirmation for the direction and features I’ve been pushing for in the fediverse.
That’s pretty fucking cool.

2024-11-18 05:25:42 UTC

- reply

And the keep remaking that story with him doing the same thing over and over and over again like we don’t notice.

2024-11-18 05:19:22 UTC

Can I be honest?
I’m tired of Batman stories.

2024-11-17 21:39:53 UTC

- reply

Do I like the idea of having to join a platform like Bluesky to engage with my people online. No. Hell no. I actually fucking hate it.
But I’m a community person that has empathy for people that do not have my skills and experiences who are just trying to find a place to kick it on a web filled with corporate platforms and open source projects run and maintained by virulent bigots.
So, I’m going to practice a bit of humility and go to where the people so I can listen and learn about what people need to pull them away from platforms we all know are bad in the long run.
The fedi has famously had a lack of empathy for people that are not in tech, which is one of the core reasons people are going to Bluesky.
Yes, there a plenty of great ideas and theories in the fedi, but until they are put into action in a way that is accessible for non tech nerds, the Blueskys of social media are going to win. Period.
And telling people they are wrong for making that decision when there is no open source platform that gives them the experience they want is the kind of arrogance that kills possibilities from happening.

2024-11-17 21:18:02 UTC

If you’re going to hate Bluesky because you prefer Mastodon that’s fine. Do you.
But it is disingenuous to talk about the ills of Bluesky and ignore the years of poor stewardship, unilateralism and how friendly Mastodon is with centralized platforms despite claiming to build an ethical alternative to them.
Yes, I don’t like Bluesky either, but I’m also a pragmatist.
And a lot of people are just not being honest about the very real and longstanding issues that have been pushing people away from Mastodon for a long time.

2024-11-17 16:40:38 UTC

I generally agree with all this, but I will say the fedi is still viable.
Mastodon is not.
The fedi can still diversify as we learn what did and did not work with apps post Twitter.
And a major lesson is that you still have to have a good product. Standing for ‘ethical alternatives’ is great but in a world where we have to choose between bad and awful to survive on a regular basis, soap boxing with under developed half assed platforms is not going to cut it.
I think it’s good to keep talking about the ills of Bluesky.
But we need to keep talking about how Mastodon basically held the door open for them by refusing to adapt and listen to the souls that were telling the project how to win. https://hachyderm.io/@danilo/113488791428762536

2024-11-14 01:05:37 UTC

Here’s the thing.
I don’t like Bluesky. I think it’s just a corporate plant in the decentralized ecosystem to get people hooked on yet another underdeveloped platform for the sake of controlling how we communicate.
But there is something to be said about how corporate entities focus on ease of use over just about everything else for the sake of getting people to use it.
I think many people in open source naively depend on the altruism of people to choose their product over a corporate option because of Bad Corporate Reasons and ignore a mediocre experience, poor leadership and difficult installation and maintenance.
The rising popularity of Bluesky is showing, again, ease of use is a priority in the carnival of social media.
Most people don’t want to go through a twelve step process to install a wheelbarrow of dependencies in the hopes it won’t crash at the first update.
Hell, I’m a dev going on 20 years now and I don’t feel like doing that shit.

2024-11-13 02:33:45 UTC

One thing I will say about Trump is that he has made the fear of a weaponized state real for white people.
A fear that Black and Brown folks have been intimately familiar with for centuries.

2024-11-07 03:26:21 UTC

- reply

Many white people don’t realize (or don’t care) how deplorable white people have been for centuries. I’m not talking about impoliteness and bad manners.
I’m talking about creating and maintaining a culture of dehumanization that includes themselves so they can turn a blind eye to the atrocities they enable.
White Americans have shown they are willing to sacrifice their own families for the sake of maintaining the illusion of white supremacy. Again and again.
Now they have to deal with the rot they ignored and/or blamed Black folks for not stopping even though there would no progressive consciousness without us.
There is no horror white people can conjure that we haven’t been through 10 times already.
And now it’s your turn to be afraid.

2024-11-07 03:17:31 UTC

I’m chuckling at white people trying to scare me with ideas of secret police, law enforcement beatings and injustice in the court system.
You’re just telling me you don’t know any Black people and refuse to listen to the millions that have been sharing their experiences for decades.
This has already been happening for awhile now.
You’re just afraid it’s going to happen to you.

2024-11-06 16:58:19 UTC

If you’re wondering what to do right now, give. Help people around you because a lot of folks are hurting.
Look up #mutualaid and help where you can. There’s a ton of work that still needs to be done and we can start by meeting people’s needs today.
The fedi raised millions for Harris.
Imagine if we put that same effort into satisfying immediate needs right now.
That would be a massive step forward and a good way to start building our collective capacity outside of politics.
We can do that right now.

2024-11-06 15:24:51 UTC

- reply

One of the main reasons I do what I do is because I envision a world where our communities are so well organized and connected that it doesn’t matter what politicians do because we have us.
I’ve worked under this premise for years and it has led me to a purpose that has sustained me through all of the hate and dehumanization people have constantly thrown at me in my years on the fedi.
I gave up on the state being a catalyst for progressive societal change a long time ago. Yesterday was just another confirmation that the US is dedicated to its own destruction and decline and is determined to bring us all down with it.
Our job is to refuse to die with the empire. Our shared goal is to disconnect from it and let it kill itself.

2024-11-06 15:07:02 UTC

I’ve said for a long time the greatest threat to the US is white Americans and they proved that yet again by coming out in force for a charlatan that repeats the lies they want to hear.
Personally, I don’t feel much about it because my existence has always been an uphill struggle. Hell, if you’ve been following me for awhile, you know how contentious the environment has been on the fedi and my fight to push this place past its racist inclinations.
I get how people feel pretty down at the moment. Do what you need to do to take care of yourself.
But as a person that has been fighting for a long time, don’t dwell in the despair. Don’t let the doom consume you. This is just a moment in time and it will pass.
And it’s a great opportunity to decouple your idea of progress from the state that has proven time and time again it does not give a fuck about your wellbeing.
Now is the time for ideas. Now is the time to create.
We are far from helpless.

2024-10-30 16:49:52 UTC

I love this thread. https://toot-lab.reclaim.technology/@djsundog/113397218840426829

2024-10-19 22:01:59 UTC

- reply

I need a t-shirt that says WHO THE FUCK IS WE?? big as hell on the front.

2024-10-19 13:48:14 UTC

Honestly?
Bluesky is just easier. Thats why people are going there over Masto.
We could do a deep dive into feature comparisons and all that, but the bottom line is that most people do not care about features if they are not easy to use.
Mastodon has made little to no progress in terms of ease of use. It’s an app built for other developers, not everyday people.
Until that is addressed, we are going to continue to see people choose Threads/Bluesky over Masto despite the obvious problems around safety, privacy and moderation.

2024-09-27 00:45:49 UTC

Here’s a secret I learned living in NYC.
The city does not need a mayor. Most communities self regulate.
The mayor’s job in NYC is mostly to make rich people and tourists feel better.
And run interference for the cops who are always fucking up.

2024-09-22 17:39:39 UTC

So basically, the state of Missouri is planning to carry out the public lynching of a brother that has been proven innocent.
This is an example of why I call the US a death cult. This is a straight up human sacrifice to white supremacy.
https://innocenceproject.org/petitions/stop-the-execution-of-marcellus-williams-an-innocent-man/

2024-09-22 01:06:34 UTC

LOL, and here’s where bigots start making excuses for their nonsense.
So it’s ok for you to not be aware of the bigotry in your own backyard but I’m a TERRIBLE PERSON because I didn’t check the profile of a person that has been enabling harassment against me for the better part of a year.
Ha, who actually responded to this post.
This is what I mean when I say bigots do not make sense and the more you let them talk, the more they reveal it.
https://cyberpunk.lol/@vantablack/113178411563275754

2024-09-17 04:13:24 UTC

Jesus fucking Christ https://flipboard.com/@gothamist/gothamist-igeoft02z/-/a-9YpB-boqRQKzO3Jjav7fIQ%3Aa%3A3807498986-%2F0

2024-09-16 01:38:28 UTC

LOL, not Trump staging another ’assassination’ attempt because the first one didn’t stick.
BRUH

2024-09-13 02:46:41 UTC

The US is a death cult. https://med-mastodon.com/@luckytran/113126578686838119

2024-09-11 22:31:42 UTC

- reply

Yeah, but that’s everybody.
I’m a dude who grew up under sexism, so it’s always in the back of my mind trying to jump out when I see/read stuff about women and their fight for independence and autonomy. It’s gotten easier to manage over the years as I’ve grown up, studied, and learned how ridiculous it is but it’s still there.
We grew up in a bigoted society, so it takes vigilance to not only unlearn the biases we’ve been taught but to keep them at bay because propaganda is relentless.
The fight is hard, yes, but every inch of ground gained is a victory worth celebrating.
So if you make a mistake, dust yourself off, make amends where you need to, and keep going.
You’re not alone in that process.

2024-09-11 22:15:35 UTC

- reply

That’s all it really takes is listening. A clear trait of a bigot is one who doesn’t want to listen to someone who is trying to honest in good faith. The fragility of that ideology demands rejection of the truth.
And as long as you keep trying, it’s impossible to fail. Mistakes happen, but that’s just a part of life.
As long as your pushing to just be a better person, you’ll never lose.

2024-09-11 22:01:42 UTC

- reply

Racism inherently doesn’t make any sense, so that’s why it can’t be understood and is usually just reactionary.
And as much as US propaganda tries to make us forget, the only ‘default Americans’ are the Indigenous tribes of the Americas, the ones white folks almost wiped out to steal their land.
A key part of US identity is forgetting history and buying into the mythos of the superiority of whiteness.
And as we are seeing in this election, there is always a hateful reaction when that sore spot is exposed.

2024-09-11 21:52:17 UTC

- reply

In my experience, white people don’t like to be reminded of the cultures they gave up to become white.
They like making the distinction for everyone else, but when it somes to them, it’s ‘offensive.’
Which I’ve always found funny.

2024-09-09 20:10:31 UTC

Straight up, if you threaten Black and Brown folks with the police knowing what the state has done to those communities, you’re a racist. Period.
This isn’t a complicated point.

2024-09-09 17:30:44 UTC

There's a thing happening on the TikToks where people are calling white people European Americans and they are LOSING IT.
I can't stop laughing.

2024-09-05 02:00:55 UTC

I just don’t understand how every Kroger is not burning to the ground after they admit they were price gouging on staple items for literally no fucking reason other than pure greed.
The fact they are still allowed to be in business is yet another damning commentary about the US.
It really is a death cult.

2024-09-01 15:10:17 UTC

Bluesky isn’t a better option than Mastodon because they are just trying to recreate a corporate platform in a decentralized space.
But I completely understand why Black and Brown folks would go there instead trying Mastodon.
The Mastodon project has not made any significant progress in a long time and has a well earned reputation for ignoring the needs of its userbase.
So unfortunately many have to choose between the lesser of two evils.
Again.

2024-08-31 17:22:39 UTC

Think about it like this.
Harris has raised about half a billion since she announced. Half a billion US dollars, with much of that coming from small donations.
That represents more collective power than voting because imagine what we could accomplish is that money was applied to community needs.
We have the means to provoke massive social change right now.
The problem has always been that most Americans identity with oppressors than the oppressed. So around in circles we go pretending we don’t have solutions and asking the worst people in our society to solve problems they never cared about.

2024-08-29 14:42:19 UTC

The more you learn about US history, the more you realize it is one of the most evil projects humankind has invented and it’s not going to get better.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/06/40-acres-and-a-lie/

2024-08-23 17:02:58 UTC

The conversation around The Acolyte is insanity.
It’s been the best show since Andor because it explores aspects of Star Wars lore that have largely been ignored because Disney focuses on easy to digest simple good vs evil narratives to appeal to as many eyes as possible.
Just like every quality show that takes risks, it has its issues but the story is compelling.
Unfortunately, any interesting conversations about the show have been drowned out by bigots who are just really upset about Black and Brown people in space shattering their monoculture delusion about a space fantasy.
I’ll always love Star Wars, but the fan base is toxic to anything not white.
It just hates anything that deviates from this white savior narrative they’ve completely made up and isn’t even in line with the original story.

2024-08-16 00:21:27 UTC

- reply

I know some people marry for social advancement, so I think it’s just a career move.
Because he is so unlikeable. Even Republicans think he is bizarre.

2024-08-16 00:12:37 UTC

Yo. JD Vance is creepy AS FUCK.
His energy is just… off.

2024-08-15 23:27:57 UTC

- reply

Here’s what I do know.
If you make the fedi safe for the most marginalized group here, which is Black queer folks, the fedi will be safe for everyone. That’s why I center what I do around being a utility for that population.
If you’re safety and inclusion project, idea, effort, whatever doesn’t include the needs of that group at its core, I’m just not interested in anything it has to say.
Because we need safety tools that actually work, not tools that make entitled communities comfortable.

2024-08-15 23:21:28 UTC

Ha, if you’re trying to convince me that you, a white person that is a member of a minority group, gets the same amount of hate, abuse and harassment as the average Black person in the fedi, I’m going to laugh in your face.
Because you’re not a serious person.