Sven Slootweg (soft-deprecated) @joepie91@pixie.town

@nova@hachyderm.io @ariadne@treehouse.systems I can only speak for myself here, of course, but my two concerns are:

1. The existence and/or normalization of corporations on the instance
2. The rather unconstructive way in which several users have been replying to my original post, making the same sort of "you must be new to how the real world works"-style patronizing comments that I would get on Twitter

If those two issues are addressed, then I would personally have no immediate reason to distrust Hachyderm. I *think*, but obviously cannot guarantee, that other fedi admins will feel similarly, and that folks would be open to reconsider defederation where it has already occurred.

The practical implementation of this would involve disallowing corporate accounts entirely, and establishing a general understanding within the Hachyderm userbase that the existing culture here exists for a reason, and that people should be respectful of that.

Of course that doesn't mean that criticism of that culture is wholly disallowed, but it should come from a place of understanding (and particularly understanding that those reasons might not apply *to them personally* but can nevertheless be valid), rather than from a place of 'defending the status quo'.

Part of that will also be recognizing that, despite the relative queerness of the Hachyderm population, it on average still has a very privileged population compared to many other instances ("well-paid folks working at big tech companies and startups", to put it bluntly), and that there is a considerable amount of people here who have not been that lucky, and who will eg. be automatically suspicious of anyone who presents their tech job as part of their identity (which I've found common on Hachyderm).

Much of this space is about self-organizing and community with a decidedly anarchist (and non-commercial) approach, and that just isn't very compatible with "well-paid tech workers who promote their employer and generally seem to support hierarchical governance models".

Particularly those in support of capitalism are generally not welcome, due to how capitalism is an active threat to many of us here.

I do think that Hachyderm can mostly coexist with other instances as long as users are aware and mindful of all this in how they interact with others outside of Hachyderm itself.

That having been said, *some* nonzero amount of instance blocks will probably be unavoidable due to fundamental incompatibilities (a risk which grows with instance size), but that's also just a part of how the fediverse works - it doesn't *need* to be one big universal platform with everybody in the same room.

@ariadne@treehouse.systems @nova@hachyderm.io I mean, like I've said, it is ultimately their choice to make. I'm only explaining why I would not trust an instance that does that, and why I expect many others won't either.

@ariadne@treehouse.systems @nova@hachyderm.io That is still "why it wouldn't be so bad" and not "why would we actively try to have this to begin with" though

@ariadne@treehouse.systems @nova@hachyderm.io The "benefit of the doubt" thing is more complicated for me.

I understand that the presence of corporation has become so embedded into culture, *particularly* in the US, that people could be (mis)led to believe that they are a necessary component of a social environment and therefore must be included in some way.

I'm not going to rake someone over the coals over that belief. That's also why my original post wasn't FediBlock-tagged.

But what bothers me is when people have been made aware of the problem, and *still* insist on "trying it out", and that is where my benefit of the doubt ends.

With the widely-documented harm that corporations as a concept do, any such attempt should come upfront with a clear justification as to why it is being attempted, and how it is different from the thousands of past failed attempts.

I have been unable to find any such justification in this case, and it not being proactively provided makes me highly skeptical that it is being attempted for the right reasons, or that the person attempting it *truly* understands the gravity of the problem.

@ariadne@treehouse.systems @nova@hachyderm.io The "if one is to exist at all" is what I'm trying to get at. Considering that corporations are fundamentally hostile entities, what possible benefit could there be from allowing (and even inviting) them to embed in your community?

Like, we can keep talking about all the problems until the birdsite dies, but ultimately I still haven't seen a credible answer to "why would you even want to *consider* doing this in the first place"?

@ariadne@treehouse.systems @nova@hachyderm.io Or to put it less generously: "good people working there" are human shields for corporate misconduct, every single time.

@ariadne@treehouse.systems @nova@hachyderm.io Their document (https://github.com/hachyderm/community/blob/main/accounts/corporate-accounts.md) is pretty clear about the intentions:

"If you have been asked to remove your corporate account we ask you to be patient with us as we are currently trying to balance our community as we introduce trust with corporations."

This is absolutely a textbook case of "normalizing corporate presence", and it's just made *worse* by "friends at corporation helping out in exchange for exposure", IMO.

It blurs the lines between the corporate and the personal, creates a corporate dependency, and further allows corporations to encroach upon a community.

Elsewhere in the reply chains, I made a list of corporations which started out as "nice companies" and then grew to become a serious problem.

*Every single one of them* had people defending it because "I know the people working there and they're good people, they're just trying to help". Without exception. It terminated any possibility of criticism or concern.

(I know this because I called out every single one of them early, only to be faced with constant "I'm sure it won't get that bad" and "I know good people there" responses - and ultimately zero action to prevent their harm.)

Well, this wasn't how I was planning to spend the day.

@ariadne@treehouse.systems @nova@hachyderm.io Sure, and your moderation policy is your decision to make. But to reiterate: my concern is primarily about the active efforts to normalize corporate presence on here, which has a community-wide impact.

@ariadne@treehouse.systems @nova@hachyderm.io There is no reason for such accounts to exist on a community instance and try to 'embed' themselves into that community. They can just run their own instance and operate it like an RSS feed.