It’s an interesting perspective. Historically the fediverse was more European; Mastodon is based in Germany and initially got a lot of traction in France, NLNet has contributed a lot of the funding, and there’s historically more adoption by European governmental organizations than US. But these days a lot of the energy is being driven by corporate interests (Flipboard, Wordpress, Meta, Ghost) which are primarily American (Ghost being the only exception), so that’s leading to a change of dynamics. Distressing, especially given what’s going on here in the US!

Thanks for making the effort to research it … there are some great examples in this thread and some of the cross-posts (although some were so egregious that the mods took them down). Also, did you follow the links at the beginning of the article? They’re talking about Mastodon (I’ll include some examples from Lemmy in the revised version) but give an idea o the overall dyamics. In any case, I’ll put in a big more about the problem in the revised draft.

The very first sentence in in quote at the beginning of the article describes what prompted this

“In recent days, folks such as @[email protected], @[email protected], @[email protected] … and many, MANY more have been speaking out about how toxic fedi culture is for Black folks and how the tools we have access to just aren’t enough.”

If you want examples, there are links in the first paragraph of the article (after the quote), and section #1 describes how to find more. The first paragraph also defines anti-Blackness:

beliefs, attitudes, actions, practices, and behaviors of individuals, institutions, software, and systems that devalue, minimize, and marginalize the full participation of Black people

Thanks, glad you like it! And yeah, there have indeed been some reddit-like things said in this thread. Oh well, comes with the territory. The lemmy.blahaj.zone thread is somewhat better so far (famous last words).

My guess is that the fediverse will split into regions that decide to address anti-Blackness (and everything else) and others that … don’t. Similarly, some platforms will focus on improving safety and others … won’t. Lemmy’s likely to be in the “won’t” category but time will tell!