cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/6853479
mastodon.art has decided to suspend firefish.social from their instance due to issues with its administrator. The administrator of firefish.social was found to be boosting posts from a known harasser on another instance. mastodon.art takes a firm stance against racism and suspending full instances in these situations is part of their policy as a safe space. The known harasser has a history of using slurs, harassment, and editing screenshots to spread misinformation. However, the administrator of firefish.social has now forged a screenshot to paint mastodon.art in a negative light.
in a federated system necessarily yes it kind of does regardless of if you think that’s fair. we get shit for what we believe (and maintain) are extremely valid and straightforward reasons for defederating with a handful of not-malicious instances and that can impact who comes here and why. if you were to create an image of being–for lack of better wording–a messy bitch with a catty and overdramatic attitude (as many people seem to read this as being) your instance will gain that reputation, it will influence who your users are, and it can go so far as to be negatively reflected onto completely innocent users.
now, if the mastodon.art person doesn’t care about that then they don’t care, and i’m again not saying that i care either way–it’s their website, they can do what they want–but the presumption that this is in a vacuum or absent consequences is silly. it’s not!
literally the opinion of a handful of people. If that was true, the instance would collapse.
There will always be people unhappy with something. You can’t please everyone. The .art admin chose to please people of their instance, instead of maintaining a “look” that is expected from randos on the internet.
I’m 100% with the admin, and I’m glad the admin isn’t peer-pressured into being whatever people need them to be. Again, there’s a reason why the instance is so popular.