So, here's a problem I have with Mastodon: let's say I make a post and someone replies with a racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic comment. I can block that comment, but that only hides it for me. Other people who come to my page will see the comment, and believe that I tacitly condone that behaviour. I'd like to be able to delete the reply from my replies list entirely. Or at least hide replies from blocked accounts. And, yes, I know that wouldn't delete it from the originating server.
@evan If you're on a good instance, just reporting these should fix it. It's one thing people coming from TwitBook easily forget: here, the moderators are on our side and not driven by the profit motive.
@evan Ironically, this is something that Threads handles better. You can hide a reply from everyone over there.
@evan you should be able to delete responses to your message off the server your account is on in my opinion
I think what you are suggesting is to de-link / orphan a comment from an original post?
I would love that (as long as it also becomes clear to the author of the other comment: nobody benefits from a system where non-transparant shadow-banning exists).
It wouldn't have occurred to me to blame you for someone else's behavior. But if you really want to make it clear that homophobic reply guy doesn't speak for you, you could reply back. You could mention that you're both reporting the reply to the moderators, and blocking the person.
@evan that's a reasonable thing to want, but just because someone posts replies to you, I don't assume that you condone it.
@evan A simple solution would be to reply to the offensive post saying "I do not condone this and will now block your account" or similar. Then block. Presumably your reply will remain visible on others' timelines.
Mastodon should treat all replies like reddit does. we should not be able to boost or favorite them, only up/down vote. crap would get down voted into oblivion.
I really want to see Mastodon and lemmy or kbin merge. hashtags function like subreddits. eventually all content should be a POST on the fediverse. all this combined functionality would make us better than any closed platform could be.
@evan 100% agree. If we all pick up the dog poop off of our front lawn, the entire neighborhood benefits.
Bonus points for a system that summarizes the top posts that have been booted by users to the admins so that they can consider booting the users/instances from the admin level. This way the community is helping the admins do their job.
@evan
But that would also mean you could delete/block valid replies, and ones the original posters don't like.
It could then look like people don't disagree with the original post.
Tricky.
@evan It's one of these classic, fundamental problems in decentralised networks ;) Who "owns" the list of replies? I would say the author of the starting thread gets to maintain the list of accepted replies and this list propagates across the fediverse. Others will say that at max a flag should be added with a qualifier and that other instances should be free to decide if/how they show/hide flagged replies. But who gets to add flags? Just the thread "owner" or any reader? Etc.
@evan I'd favour the first approach. When you load a post from me (be it an original post or a reply I posted to someone else's post) you should receive a list of replies I accept. And I should be allowed to define what that list contains. But it's a complex issue.
@evan i'd settle for downshift to foot of thread with a colour switch and a line in the favs/boost section advising message reported by OP (and whoever else in the thread).
A (user)block can only be reported at the user, not the toot level.
Also, the offending reply is a one time cost because once blocked, said user couldn't reply again to that or any other of your posts so they couldn't haunt your timeline unbeknownst to or unstoppably by you. One and done.
@evan I think “disassociation” might be an interesting approach. Let the comment stand in isolation, unlinked from your post as a response. If not the first time this has been posited, I’d welcome thoughts as to why it wouldn’t work.
@jwildeboer it's not a fundamental problem; we've always made the OP responsible for the list of replies. That's why there's a `replies` collection in every ActivityPub object.
@jwildeboer if other people want to make racist replies to what I say, they can do that, but I don't have to republish it on my site.
Don't worry; being an original poster does not mean you're responsible for everyone's experiences when reading all content arising from one of your Public posts. And your readers have no greater warrant, for thinking you tacitly accept/reject any reply, than you have to decide for them when any reply is unworthy.
Nevertheless, if you really want a similar type of power, Mastodon allows enough control over followers and post visibility for you to exercise it in some non-Public contexts.
@funbaker "unpack". Meaning, "explain in further detail". I posted a problem I have, and you said "There's no problem with each person be responsible for this on their own tho." Like, I think there *is* a problem, which I described, so I don't know why you think there isn't.
@fraying @evan
The problem is that we can't have a feature that "removes poop", because it would mean that poop is automatically and unquestionably identified.
What we are discussing here is merely a way to hide or orphan replies that one does not like.
If this feature was introduced, a fascist may hide the replies of antifascists to his posts, a misinformation actor may hide replies that debunk his claims etc.
Reply and report (and block, eventually) is preferable and already in place.
Enough people socially think the person who started the thread owns the comments below it that getting first-class support for it would be amazing.
I know friendica and hubzilla support it, but Mastodon should too!
@evan Threads has nearly exactly this feature - “hide comment” where after you do that neither you nor anyone else sees it, but the original poster is NOT notified. So they don’t harass further.
@Eh__tweet @evan nobody was talking about an automated process. Everything we’ve described has humans making decisions. And everyone here already knows about report and block. The tools are insufficient.
Thank you, Evan
I wish someone was paying attention as I have been *screaming* this same issue from the rooftops, as well.
@fraying @evan
I did not mean an automated process, my point is that what is bad for me and you is not bad for someone else. So we can't have a feature to "hide only the bad replies", because the system can't decide what's good or bad. We just can have a feature to hide replies one doesn't like. And this feature would also be available for fascists, racists, homophobes, propaganda agents etc. It would strengthen their communication.
@Brendanjones @geekgrrl @malwaretech @renchap
No, it's not.
Every object has a `replies` collection. What we need is:
1) When showing the replies to an object, use the `replies` collection -- not a search for `inReplyTo` or `ostatus:conversation`, which is what Mastodon does right now.
2) Let the user add and remove objects from the replies collection.
3) (Optional) Notify addressees when a new object is added to the `replies` collection (`Approve` or `Add` activity)
@evan totally agree! The owner of an original post should be able remove comments as one level of control "up" from simply muting/hiding comments from their personal viewing. Not only should this be a basic right of any user having control over their own content and how it is used, if corporations and government organizations are going to use Fediverse tools in a big way they will especially demand this kind of functionality in order to limit their own exposure and liability.
Somehow you make it sound like a post you make belongs to you (as in property) and you should be able to control who can respond to it.
Let's act as adults and realize that once you make a public statement you no longer "own" this statement, it is there in public domain, people can agree/disagree, adopt, or reject it, or even modify it and restate the original. It is what we want, isn't it?
@evan Yeah, that's been a consistent ask for a very long time, as I understand it. I think fep-7888 (and fep-5624, revised to apply to the context field as described in 7888) gives the most robust and reliable mechanism to federate that kind of reply moderation.
https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/fep-7888-demystifying-the-context-property/3021/2
@evan i think the normal response would be to report it, and the server it originates from should ban them, and if they don't, this server should get limited federation, for being badly moderated, but yeah, it's not an immediate response, and it'll certainly frequently fail.
But on the other hand, the ability to delete any response you don't like might be a bit much.
@tshirtman why? I can do that on blog comments. It wouldn't delete it from the replier's server or anywhere else; just from the page that shows my original post.
@evan to me it seems normal to be able to expect contradiction on social media, as long as it stays civil, it feels like hiding/removing content is a moderator's job.
@evan I want to be able to curate the discussion under my posts. That's not possible now without blocking users. Which is different from removing a single reply that isn't appropriate for my initial post.
So yes. Agree with what you want. I want that too.
@evan
On the bird site I frequently would reply to any bigot
#IBlockAssholes, etc, to warn others before i would block them.
So, our only recourse at this point is to block the person, delete our post, and then repost with a warning (not a link) about the person we blocked's prior behavior?
@KatKimbriel I think that's it. Another option is reporting the account and hoping it gets deleted. Lastly, you can reply to the post saying they're blocked or whatever, and then block them. It at least lets people know you're trying.
@evan could you say more about that? My only point of reference is what’s implemented in masto. What’s in the protocol that could be implemented differently?
@evan update: I’ve gleaned the basics from your replies to others - thanks. Also boy do a lot of people want to explain AP to you. How do you stay so calm?
@evan You’re probably already aware of the weaponisation of replies that are only visible to the recipient, the sender, and the sender’s network, as an abuse vector. It sounds to me like related issues, the delinking getting propagated through the network.
@tchambers @evan the challenge with federation is that people may have the troll in their local instance cache and not your post or subsequent "stfu" label.
@evan It say something sad about social media when you feel like you have to worry about people jumping to false (and ridiculous) conclusions about you based on someone's reply to your post.
If you can't remove comments, what if OP added extra metadata to the comments?
Effectively hiding the comments in "other replies".
@fraying The protocol-as-implemented is different, sometimes a lot, from protocol-as-designed. I depend a lot of people telling me how things really work.
@evan so the part about post owners editing the list of replies is in the protocol as designed but not the protocol as implemented?
I wouldn't worry about it. Highly doubt anyone thinks people have any control over replies.
@evan
I had no idea that blocking was this broken.
I would absolutely move to a service that handled this appropriately.
I don’t want to have to agree with or ask moderators to make the replies on my post conform to my standards of etiquette.
I guess EVERYONE could run their own servers and see how that goes… What could go wrong?
@fraying well, actually, not entirely. We have a part that says that there's a collection of replies, and we have a part that says you can edit any collection that belongs to you. It doesn't say explicitly that you can edit that particular collection.
@evan I don't like this either & it keeps me from posting much here. I was just reading a string of posts on Bluesky where people talked about how block works over there as well as on Threads (never been there) where there's a 'restrict' option where if someone replies with some racist or phobic crap you can restrict it & no one sees that reply. Not you, not anyone else. I love that tbh.
I should also say, as always, I really respect the work that the Mastodon team has put into this platform. Mastodon breathed life into the ActivityPub spec, and made a working social web with a lot of loosely-defined wording. We would not be where we are today with the fediverse without the Mastodon team bridging that gap.
@evan yeah, imho jwz had the right idea: replies to a post should be a timeline/collection, curated by the author, hosted with the the post...
"inReplyTo" already allows thread-chaining for clients that want to assemble a thread view, AP already has excellent timeline/collection support, all it needs is a field on the post (like "replyCollection"?) to indicate the id of this collection.
this could be a short FEP. i'd just want to try implementing it in my server first to make sure it'd work.
@evan The challenge with this is that it can also be used by bad actors. Let us assume that we roll out the feature you have requested.
I am a bad actor spreading disinformation. You reply with a link to the corrected information. I delete your reply therefore ensuring that nobody who follows me can have their bubble pierced.
Better yet, I can reply to you and then Block some relevant replies. Leaving only enough to make you look like a bad actor.
And there's not a good audit trail for this.
@robey @evan The other advantage of this model (having the reply timeline hosted alongside the original post) would be fixing the issue where you often just don't see replies to posts if you or someone else on your server doesn't happen to follow the replying party. Which, in turn, should help reduce some amount of extraneous/redundant replies, among other things.
@evan I'm confused as to why you believe that people will think you condone the content of a reply by another user. That's a pretty odd assumption.
@raf @jwildeboer @evan to me, this is enough to change to another Fedi instance type instead of Mastodon, once Threads federates. Anyone know if #Firefish supports this or not?
@evan@cosocial.ca Oh, you're right.
I don't use Instagram much, but yes, on Facebook, you definitely can.
I was thinking about Twitter.
I guess the difference is that on FB or Insta, the comment belongs to the post, it's a subpart of it (like it is in blogging) whereas on Twitter or Mastodon, it's a full post in itself that belongs to the account of the person who wrote it.
@evan you can post a public reply to such comment, state that you completely despise the contents of it and that you’ll block and report the person.
This way anyone reading through your page will see that you don’t condone that behavior.
@evan Would this be possible if you run your own instance and be the admin/moderator?
If yes, should the development of Mastodon lead in a direction, where it is easier to host single (or low count) user instances? They could be managed, of course. Replace "pick a server and create an account" with "create a server".
@evan @DavidBHimself Isn't this just explaining why Facebook is an echo chamber of disinformation though?
@evan replying dumb to a post about deleting dumb replies, in the hopes that one day, my dumb reply will be deleted.
May god have mercy on our souls
Problem with you being in charge of deleting, is that it stifles speech , since others can do it to you in the same way.
Far better to reply to your own thread stating that you have blocked the person. Others may then do the same and if so, the effect is far greater, as the objectionable person becomes marginalised.
@evan @geekgrrl @malwaretech @renchap Ah, I think I got this confused with another issue. Going to delete my reply so it doesn’t mislead anyone.
@evan Sorry, I shouldn’t have said private. I had undersood that if someone does a reply that’s restricted to their followers, this is used for harassment because their like-minded followers see it but no-one else. Your description of a de-linking seems to me to be a way to reduce the impact of that too.
This is an endorsement of your suggestion!
@jwildeboer @raf @evan But then you would also become responsible for everything everyone says. Non-action would be seen as consent.
@evan We could probably do it like Discord with messages from blocked people, where the content is hidden until someone shows it.
It wouldn't be hiding per se, but it would definitely say that you weren't condoning the message and if we just leave the message there in the same spot, it would be able to stop bad actors from hiding comments willy-nilly. Something like the screenshots I posted below, but in the appropriate UI of course.
@evan If/when something like that happens, I would delete my post, block the commenter, then repost it. I suppose it’s not a good practice if the post already has some interactions with others. But usually, when there are positive replies, they set the tones for the thread and deter the negative commenters somewhat, imho.
I will admit, for threads that I think could attract argumentative people, I make the last post something slightly incendiary so I can do exactly what you describe without reducing reach for the thread more broadly.
@smallcircles @evan I can see that being a flashpoint for harassment, so making those public would definitely need to be an optional feature.
@aral what was you called it when you block and then unblock was it bumping?
@evan The way the bird site mitigated this problem was to allow you to restrict the ability to reply on each individual tweet. For example, you could allow only those you follow to reply.
@evan I would tag it with #TrollAlert, reply to it, and then block. So people would know you don't tolerate that. Or post a picture of Trump in a urinal. I would report it as well. I'm new here, but since this is much smaller than Twitter, hopefully, the admins are much more responsive.
@Gerego my web site still would have racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic content on it. Not acceptable.
@evan I thought the philosophy was that if someone posts something like that you report them, your instance moderators blocks them, and if they came from a reasonable instance, their admin boots them from the server, thus deleting all their horribleness.
@evan not sure what you call your “website”? Your Mastodon profile is definitely not a website, but a social media platform.
@evan 100% yes to this! It sucks that the problematic comment remains attached to the original post.
@evan Some interesting replies in this thread. I think this is why a blog with ActivityPub could be useful. On your own site you should be able to hide specific replies, but I can see an argument for not exactly “owning” the profile page on someone else’s Mastodon server.
@evan it’s the fundamental problem with the idea that a reply to your post is *not* a reply on your post, it is literally someone else’s post that is linked to yours. Which causes so many problems.
I guess unlinking them should be made possible in some capacity—you can’t delete someone else’s post, but you can make it not-findable under yours.
I don't know if this is just Mastodon's bizarre way of organizing comment threads, or what, but I'm really not seeing anything about better ActivityPub implementations in this thread, and keyword search for "Friendica" isn't turning anything up.
I saw some stuff about Cohost and Post, but I don't know if those are AP?
Any chance you could link to the relevant portions of the thread?
https://fediversity.site/item/b8368169-ebe8-4e51-801f-062a7ff991d4
This is the last time-wasting request I'm going to reply to. Good luck in your research.
I agree with @manton –
Wordpress+ActivityPub, micro.blog, Brid.gy etc, are the ultimate version of this as you stated above;
All replies go into the wordpress moderation system complete with anti-spam if you have the plug-in.
on Starrwulfe.xyz, I have it set for all comments to be through the syndication links themselves (i.e. wherever I’ve POSSE’d the article should pull comments back to the blog.) I can then deal with questionable comments on both sides by using tools on my blog as well as whatever tools are at my disposal at whatever instance I’m pulling the comment from.)
You mean you own the server? cosocial.ca
I would be afraid of their populism, you can disect it and return it to expose their stupidity. I have participated in blogs where full-blown neo-nazis speaking german, but may have been croatian, who knows, threatening they will come and find us and we will drown in our own blood. They have this thing with blood among other mental issues. We didn't delete them, even if it was an english speaking blog. People should see what they are made of
Don't take it personally, I have seen you mean well, and with fascists there is no limit to how far you can squash them.
It is one of the drawbacks against the ideal of democracy, in private property one can act as a dictator it is very unlikely that they will not. While the west is the source of criticism of undemocratic acts by adversaries, it is private property instituted by the west that is the base of dictatorial rule. All corporations, and public administration are one.
