MKMO (mkultra.monster) Now Blocks Federation with Threads, Once, and For All

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As per my last post this morning (in regard to Meta’s loosening of moderation, as if it wasn’t already loose enough), I, as the admin of mkultra.monster, will be blocking federation with Threads. For a long period of time, I hadn’t been doing this, partially because I don’t like bandwagons, and also because there are regular, decent people on Threads that I personally wanted to see. But, now it’s a bit more than a lost cause, and the social network is nothing but a detriment to the open social web.

The people I liked seeing updates from will just have to move to Mastodon, or some other fediverse software.

But, the other reason I wanted to post this, is because there are a lot of people who trot out their reasoning, or why they’ve blocked them from the start. Whether it’s performative or not, I remained skeptical for a long period of time. Skeptical, because I have experience from within the fediverse of numerous people, moderators, and admins saying one thing, or that they stand for one thing, and then they do the opposite.

And this has made me more critical, more skeptical, and more distrusting of others.

Yes, I have spoken about this before, but since it’s been about a year or so (or more?) since this all happened, I want to again bring light to the actions of the administrator and moderation team behind the Mastodon instance … hackers.town.

It was some time around August 25th of 2023, that I was posting on my timeline over at HT about … I don’t know, something to do with how resilient my Macbook was. I was kind of stanning Apple real hard around that time, just because I enjoyed/liked their hardware. Never-the-less, a user by the name of 0xSH00T (who now, at least, appears to be banned and erased, over a year later) jumped in to make some vitriolic remarks about myself, my having posted on the timeline, and my choice in hardware.

It was a stupid thing to get angry about, and it was a stupid thing to troll someone over.

He escalated, I escalated, and I don’t claim to be of perfect cognitive or mental health. I have my issues, and I deal with them.

I told him, and I quote, “Go fuck yourself, eat a pile of dicks and delete your goddamn account.”

Yes, this is kind of … haha, ANGRY.

And I had every right to be.

In a direct message that no longer contains the originating message from the admin (@thegibson), I responded, “I’m here minding my own business mostly just talking to myself, and this person comes into my mentions swinging, I’m not tolerating any both sides-ing bullshit. Delete the instigator or I’m out.”

Because, he and his mod-team, very much were playing the “both sides” card. In response to a troll, who was, in fact, instigating a fight.

I didn’t really want to leave hackers.town (and I wouldn’t have, anyway, I just wanted the troll to, at minimum, be moderated). I was in a blood-haze, and kind of spiraling a bit. Just like when it happened on the instance over at deadinsi.de, where just about the same things had gone on, and the admin and moderator team had a lapse in judgment. That’s … that’s what we’ll call it, I guess.

I made an off-the-cuff post about PTSD, I told Gibson again something like, “either you ban this asshole, or you ban me” and rather than doing any real moderation work, I was, of course, banned.

This was not the outcome I thought would take place. At least not at the time.

Again, I was spiraling. I was in a much worse mental place than I am now.

Of course, I shouldn’t have been banned. If someone is having a break in mental health, and spiraling out (crashing out, as the zoomers would say) over being harassed over and over, as a responsible administrator, or moderator, you take action against the instigator, no matter the personal relationship you hold with them.

Over this tiny, insignificant instance of abuse, I lost years of my presence on the fediverse, indefinitely. There were never any talks or apologies once the dust had settled. There was never any further action taken, appeals never read, never looked at, never considered. And yet, for whatever reason, my account still stands, frozen in time (suspended, but viewable), and now linking to my account on my own instance … where this type of thing will never happen.

You cannot call yourself an instance, a server, that is tolerant, and forward-thinking, and “for the people,” if your personal relationships come first. Especially if those personal relationships are with instigative assholes who shouldn’t exist on your platform. This is going to sound really self-absorbed, but I am a better administrator and moderator than anyone at hackers.town by 1000 miles, and I will stand by that, into the future. Because I will never let this happen.

Even if my server is only ever myself, and one other person, trolls will never gain the upper-hand, because I will never make excuses for anyone who’s being a shit.

And that’s why, when people start posting on the federated timeline, about how bad you are if you don’t, or haven’t had Threads blocked, I have to stop and question: Is there an ulterior motive here? Should I care what any of these people think? What have they done in their positions that they likely haven’t answered for?

And, thankfully, in a lot of instances, none of this applies. They’re just thoughts … most of the time.

But there are people out there in the fediverse who are just as bad as the people you’d hope to escape by leaving Twitter, or Threads, and I think it’s important to realize that no place is perfect. The open social web, Mastodon, and ActivityPub is something I will continue to, and always support. But … it’s important to know that it’s not all just roses and candy.

Jerks, and people not fit to moderate, exist, everywhere.