You’re Doing It Wrong

Over the past few months the ActivityPub world, and the larger decentralised social media ecosystem, has seen increasing tension leading to public shaming and attacks that I believe hurt everyone’s ability to progress, undermines our collective goal of better social media for all, and hurts the wider social web.

More importantly, I believe it constitutes brigading and harassment – and creates very real harm for the person being harassed, emotional and psychological trauma that inflicts real-world consequences on the individual.

Fueled by the growing presence of forces that were previously alien to the Fediverse, communities and leaders are having to make hard decisions that simply cannot please everyone, and community members who want and deserve a safer internet are increasingly seeking solutions to their unanswered problems.

I’ve witnessed this rise in anger and dissatisfaction lead to personal attacks, and I feel the need to call it out. I’m not a perfect person, I’ve made errors in judgement, I’ve been wrong many times. I’ve naysayed the customers, hotheadedly added a feature that broke stuff, generally been an arrogant arsehole at times. No-one’s perfect. But here’s what I’m seeing, and what I think about it.

You’re doing it wrong

I’ve seen the creator of a directory of community servers publicly vilified for making changes to their inclusion criteria. A lovely, hand-crafted list of communities, provided for free by someone who is personally invested in their view of something valuable for their audience. But when the changes were made, and professionally communicated, this individual was subjected to public harassment for a couple of days, most astoundingly directed by people who had willingly used this free listing service up until this point.

“That thing you do for free, out of love, that until now I found value in? You’re doing it wrong.”

I’ve seen the developer of a communications bridge, someone who has been connecting personal web sites and supporting the IndieWeb for over a decade, brigaded and harassed for doing the very same work they’ve been doing for twelve years, all while openly asking for feedback and comment, and demonstrating a tangible desire to respond to that feedback.

“That thing you do for free, out of love? You’re doing it wrong.”

I’ve seen the curator of a number of domain denylists calmly describe their project as having outlived its natural lifespan, no longer fit for purpose, and carefully redirect the activity to their view of better options. I watched this unpaid volunteer whose lists have been respected and consumed by server administrators far and wide berated for their approach and their unwillingness to change the basic nature of their project.

“That thing you do for free, out of love, that until now I found value in? You’re doing it wrong.”

I’ve seen the creator of the world’s most widely-used independent social media platform publicly insulted for clearly communicating their vision, their goals, and their approach to achieving that vision and those goals. Someone whose leadership has literally changed the course of the world’s largest social media conglomerate, and whose free and open source product is touted in the global media as a viable competitor to a social network owned by the richest person on the planet.

“That thing you do out of love, that until now I found value in? You’re doing it wrong.”

I’ve seen the marginalised, minority, and underserved voices calling for safety features in social media shouted down and publicly scorned for “not understanding how the protocol works”, demonstrating just how unwilling others are to listen, to empathise, to care. “It’s open source, just fork it”, has been the rallying cry for the naysayers for some time now. And yet, when some active voices stand up and suggest a fork, they are then told “you can’t fork it, it’s too hard, you don’t understand the level of effort…”

“You’re doing it wrong.”

In most of these examples I saw repeated, harassing, angry replies repeated for hours, sometimes days, not letting the issue drop, hammering away at these people with all the justification and fury of an unhappy paying customer, coupled with brigading cc’s to other folks on the Fediverse to join in and add fuel to the argument, as if their indignation could be won by sheer strength of numbers, making sure the recipient of their ire knew for damn sure just how wrong they were.

This is not leadership.

This is not community.

This is not OK.

You’re doing it wrong

I have opinions, as do you. And I disagree with plenty of people, as do you.

And yet, every single person I’ve seen subjected to this online harassment has a common goal: better social media.

Their view of what that looks like may differ from yours, but each one of them wants change. None of the problems we are facing are due to lack of action.

All of these problems are thanks to the fact that each one of the leaders above, and thousands more, have stepped up to create change, to offer something new. To propose a patch, or a translation, or feedback, or pay for server hosting, or volunteer as a moderator or community manager. Every single problem being pointed to is because rapid change is happening and people with a love of community, openness, and freedoms are stepping up to help make it happen, to shape it, to steer it, for the most part motivated by a commitment to continuous improvement, iterative change, and the common good.

You’re doing it wrong

To the leaders in this space: punch up, not down. Demonstrate empathy, integrity, resilience. You cannot meet everyone’s needs, but you can lead others by example. Lead them to the same success you’ve enjoyed. By dint of your success you now have a moral obligation to at least listen. A rising tide lifts all boats, help create a supportive environment that understands there is a broader universe that can benefit from your lessons learned.

To the people who want change: your needs must be heard, and hopefully championed by others with the time, energy and privilege to work on those needs. Find support systems, common ground, and individuals and entities willing to help make the change you want to see. Join them.

To the people who support people: your support does not classify you as being antagonistic to other people or other activities. The people who support something different than you are not your opponents. There is no side, there is no right and wrong. We are building a new social web and there are a hundred outcomes we haven’t even thought of yet. Nothing is ever full, finished, or ready. Keep on supporting the people and projects you love, and make room for the rest of the world to succeed or fail alongside whatever cause you champion.

To the people who say “you’re doing it wrong”: please stop. Don’t type while angry. Do not attempt to win an internet argument. If you must attempt to win an internet argument, come argue this statement with me: no-one has ever won an internet argument. If someone is providing a free service, uncompensated, unpaid, out of personal commitment, you have exactly zero right to require them to do work for you, or to hold them to a standard or service they didn’t commit to. To paraphrase the Dude: just because you’re not wrong doesn’t mean you’re not an arsehole. If you can’t find a way to be constructive, maybe back off for a bit.

You’re doing it wrong

With regard to the harassment witnessed above, I won’t link to these conversations. For the most part, the vast majority of the Fediverse has never heard any of this, and I have no desire to reignite any of it. I’ve seen large communities and their moderation teams blissfully unaware of any of this activity, because we inhabit a social graph that is self-defined and 95% of the Fediverse simply doesn’t follow any of these people. Thanks to the lack of a virality-seeking algorithm, those of us in these feedback loops see nothing but this acrimony for a day or two, especially if we inhabit fast-paced reactive chat spaces, while most of the community hears none of it. This problem is nowhere near as big as many inside the problem bubble think it is, but that problem bubble includes most of the thinkers, doers, and advisors in the space.

That said, we are many of us victims of our own success. Over the years we have managed to create an alternative social media landscape that has attempted to meet the needs of many who have been unhappy with the services provided by the large media companies. We have succeeded in some areas, and failed in others. This landscape is still underdeveloped, and has plenty of room to meet the needs of all people, all communities. ActivityPub is just a protocol, not a community. Mastodon, Lemmy, and Pixelfed et al are just platforms, not communities.

Communities are made by people, not protocols, not platforms. Communities use protocols and platforms for those people to build on. But better social media is not a better protocol, it’s not a better platform, it’s better relationships.

I beseech everyone involved in creating better social media: be the change you want to see in the world. Disagree without being disagreeable. Let’s find our common ground, let’s support each other despite our differences, let’s empathise, let’s listen, let’s learn.

Let’s commit to worrying more about being helpful and supportive than about being “right”.

Let’s commit, here and now, to never say “you’re doing it wrong” again. Let’s find ways to provide constructive feedback, encourage open dialogue.

Let’s grow, together, all of us invested in better social media for all.