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FAQ
Hey, this FAQ is mainly about hate speech, since this is the source of most of the hang-ups about blocklisting.
Why did you call it BLOCKchain?
Because the typical kinds of people who are targeted by this blocklist really cryptocurrencies (which use blockchains as their basis). Neo-nazis use them frequently for donations, ancaps and neo-feudalists love them from a philosophical angle, despite the fact it guzzles electricity and provides nothing of intrinsic value.
Blockchain itself is quite an over-hyped and useless technology for most applications too.
So for all these reasons I felt it would be fun and catchy to appropriate it for the purposes of blocking.
Do you just block right-wing people?
It's not really of any concern of mine whether something is left or right (and I'm not a fan of this dichotomy that much anyway), just the content that is espoused. If it is hateful or discriminatory and the instance's administration accepts that behaviour, then that instance go on the blocklist.
This activity does however tend to be more common on the 'right', especially on the fediverse.
What about anti-white racism?
The problem with the idea of anti-white racism is not that it can't exist (there definitely are hate ideologies that malign or vilify white people), it's that this concept is often simply used as a reaction to civil rights reform, people who call out racism, or someone expressing their frustrations with certain patterns of behaviour that may be common to white communities.
It's also often used as a dogwhistle as part of a false narrative currently being perpetuated by white supremacists (ie. 'White Genocide', 'The Great Displacement', 'Cultural Marxism', etc.).
To be frustrated with institutional racism or be frustrated with behaviour typical of white communities is not the same as attacking and vilifying people for being white. You can't stop being white, but you can change your views or at least have a meaningful discussion about them if someone calls you out for it.
What about antifa?
You are free to disagree with violence that antifascist groups sometimes employ (much of an antifasist group's time is actually spent doing non-violent things and not all anti-fascist groups use violence), but it's not an immutable characteristic to have fascist ideologies or to spread them, nor is it a characteristic that can exist in a democratic or compassionate society. Paradox of Tolerance and all that.
To be against a hate group for being a hate group isn't the same as actually being a hate group. It's just people protecting their communities who are being victimised.
You shouldn't censor people for their ideologies.
Firstly, censorship is normally performed at a state level, in a way where access by any other means is impossible or very difficult.
Blocking isn't censorship. Nobody is actually stopping you from listening to hate groups in the entire fediverse. If you don't like what an instance blocks, then go on a different instance. We all have relatively little power here.
Secondly, the people that are behind these blocklists have already decided that certain peoples' opinions aren't important, that certain people are worthy of hatred and abuse. Blocking is simply damage control. To suggest it's anything else is really disingenuous.
It's also important that while ideology is a jumping off point, it isn't the ultimate reason this is done. Me blocking instances for enabling hate ideologies and hate speech is nothing compared to the threat of violence that these groups, ideologies and actions pose against certain groups of people.
If you want to not be on my blocklist, you can simply change your mind and not let these people on your server and/or stop doing the things you're being blocked for. If you're a targeted minority and want to make someone with a hateful ideology or behaviour happy, you have to stop existing.
Shouldn't there be people around who can challenge these hateful ideologies?
Yes, but it's not everyone's responsibility. Especially not the responsibility of those who are normally victimised by hate groups (and for whom someone in a hate group wouldn't listen to anyway).
If you have the energy and faculties (and know enough about what you're doing) to occasionally put yourself around these kinds of people (especially if you're white, straight, cis, male, etc.) and provide alternative narratives or an alternative voice, then by all means do.
Won't blocking these people make them more entrenched in their views?
As someone who was formerly in an apocalyptic anti-abortion, creationist and kinda homophobic Christian background, thinking about it in this way is missing the point.
This isn't to change their minds, this is a form of quarantine.
When you're in this kind of mindset, you're already conditioned to treat most things as a reinforcement of your own beliefs. Blocking is just to prevent more people becoming like them and to prevent them from targeting and hurting others.
Getting entrenched people out of these kinds of situations is a whole separate practice unto itself and it's a long, internal process. Giving these people access to broadcasting channels and communities will not help them leave and it won't make safe communities for marginalised people.
You can't tell if someone has a particular ideology or belief or not.
Not entirely, but that's not what I specicially look for. I look at what people do.
For all I care, you can be the most hateful person imaginable, but if you keep it to yourself and don't post an ounce of it, I would have no interest in your server. Furthermore, I wouldn't be able to tell.
I'm well aware that not everyone who posts hate speech are 100% aware of what they are doing, but it's not the intent that matters, it's the fact that the action occurred in the first place and what the effects of that speech are.
If you find doing particular things acceptable, for whatever reason, you will be on the blocklist, and only by understanding why that was a bad thing to do and stop doing those things will you ever not be on the list.
Can't you just let users block each other?
No, because it doesn't give anyone a guarantee of safety.
I would argue that a positive community environment is one where someone doesn't have to be concerned or worried about abuse or oppressive ideologies aimed at them, that isn't a place where someone has to react as an individual against individual cases of abuse. Proactive rather than reactive, community-based rather than individual-based.
Whether a victim of abuse can block someone or not doesn't really matter because the emotional damage is already done at that point. In the long run, that wears someone down. It's also very isolating because it's all on the individual to manage all of the cases of unwarranted hatred and bullshit.
I don't personally want to be in an instance where people in vulnerable groups (like myself) are basically expected to fend for themselves. That's a pretty unhappy way for a place to be IMO and one of the reasons people left Twitter for our kind of Mastodon instances.
But if you're not bothered by certain people and don't get as much abuse as someone else, you're free to go on an instance where you can block people on an individual level. Nobody's stopping you, everyone has choices that suit them.
What about admins who aren't in hate groups but let users who are hate group on their instances?
It's an admin's responsibility for who they have on their server.
Speech carries consequences, so you cannot claim to be a neutral facilitator of information. The internet isn't just a network - it is a network of people.
I would also raise serious questions about any of those admins for them to treat the speech on their service in this way. For instance, for someone to have the capacity to treat a person who dehumanises trans people the same way as someone who likes a certain TV show.
Say I don't want my instance to be on your blocklist anymore. What would I need to do?
Do:
- Learn why the things you did were wrong.
- Stop doing those things.
- Keep at it.
Don't:
- Tell me that you will remove the posts of the screencaps I posted. I care about what you find acceptable to post on your server as a whole, not X incident or Y incident.
- Tell me that you don't have hateful ideologies or beliefs therefore you shouldn't be on the list. I don't care what you say your beliefs are, just what you do.
What do you do with instances that no longer exist?
They generally stay on the list, they just become marked that they no longer exist.