I am in this instance using "Queer" to mean an umbrella for all who are othered by society.
I'm telling you that people with lifelong chronic disability, people who are sex workers, and people who are dispropotionately targeted by the law enforcement or the state, AND disenfranchised casually in everyday society because of their appearance and/or melanin levels...All have networks of contacts they have relied on for over a decade in many cases.
It was easy for me to get off Twitter but for a lot of people I care about, it'd mean severing so many important bonds...and I just thought this sentiment is something that someone reading might apply too, as well
Oh ofc...and i wanted to use this moment to point out tge real-world outcomes that people are experiencing, because it's all too easy to fall into the trap of perceiving it as solely hypoyhetical. (Nearly wrote it off myself as "well, itll be nothing but bots soon"...but im tryna illustrate it just aint that simple)
This sounds like a general issue of: if you're at the margins of society, you're going to have a bad time on social media. Social media is a distillation of the majority opinion on things (i.e. the most extreme versions of majority opinions), and if the majority is intolerant, you'll get the worst of the intolerance.
For example, society's general perception is that sex work is gross, so the most extreme view of that is that sex work is literally corrupting our kids, so you'll get that kind of pushback on social media. A lot of people are uncomfortable with LGBT issues, so the most extreme form of that is attacking LGBT people. Unpopular opinions tend to get attacked, extreme forms of popular opinions tend to stay and get boosted (usually the extreme form is hidden 3-4 levels deep in a discussion thread).
Important to remind people that it's not theoretical when we talk about it. It's real human beings that are being scapegoated. It's real abusers that get a smokescreen.
I 100% agree, which is a huge part of why I don't engage much with social media. Lemmy is literally it for me.
I'm not in a marginalized group, I just refuse to engage with that nonsense. I don't have any solutions for those who are impacted, other than try to build real-world connections with people. Maybe local meetups are a good option here, idk.
Thanks. Vest advice I have to any person looking to help, is dont just be a passive ally. Step up as an accomplice. When there's a police protected parade of alt-right demonstrators, show them that they're outnumbered. The SRA does a good job of that, as one example.
The other advice is that whatever space you exist in, be proactive in showing bigots that there's no place at the table at your club.
To anyone reading: Just dont do nothing. You are as powerful as your solidarity.
I haven't seen that. If you piss off the group mind here you pretty much move on. On real social media you have to worry that someone will just show up at your home.
I always get confused in this thought. So if govt bans twitter(hypothesis) and these people spread to other better places, will they improve or is it better to leave these vile beings among themselves to rot in their twitter or whatever.
I am okay with the group mind. YouTube kept suggesting Pragur and Epoch times to me.
It finally stopped when I told them in the report video that if I saw another suggestion for Epoch times I will physically go there and scream at them about their YouTube ads until I am dragged out of the building.
The problem is they took a healthy user base and injected hate speech into it. People thinking they need to preserve the space didn't get the message that they need to get out, so now elon is free to subjugate them. Now you have multiple entrenched sides that will erode at each other's goodwill until it blossoms into contempt and the cycle of human suffering continues.
At the same time other platforms can't thrive because they are overshadowed by the suffering machine.
There's a theory that part of the problem is that social media aggregates too many different people in one place. Our brains naturally create in groups and out groups, making conflict and toxicity inevitable.
Twitter has never been great, just easy to use and widely adopted. It’s gotten worse under Musk and mostly appeals to the worst people left on the platform.
It had its moments. Back in the day I had all the libraries and park feeds in my area on it. Could just plan out my week with my kids in one spot. Yes I tried using a RSS reader but the websites weren't as updated as the Twitter feeds were.
Seriously, it's on you the longer you stay on that shithole platform. Despite all of the warnings. All of the things Musk has done. You're still on it. Why? Besides member count, why? Why stick with something that actively hates you and works against your best interests?
"Because uh, muh friends..."
Get those friends off the fucking platform too. If they're staying behind, consider getting new friends.
Mastodon and Blue Sky are better alternatives. Get the fuck off of X. Get some damn self-respect for once.
I feel like the type of person reading your comment on Lemmy isn't the type of person that stays on a platform after it pulls shit they don't agree with.
Oh no, they don't censor every opinion I don't like, don't remove every post that does not align with my worldviews as disinformation, and don't forbid people to say bad words towards me while allowing me to do same towards them, what a horrible place!
Facebook (Meta) actually has a cutting edge team that researches and fights disinformation, they publish some really cool research every few months I recommend reading it. Unfortunately, their efforts amount to pissing on a wildfire that the rest of the company is doing its best to dump gasoline on, since that team is under-resourced compared to the teams tasked with increasing user engagement.