This is not to say that "make your own instance" isn't racist or that Black users haven't been subjected to racist frames of CWs/TWs or had their posts censored. But Black Twitter also thrived under a centralized tech regime & is a little lost with decentralized UX/UI designed specifically antithetical to Twitter.

If Black Twitter emerged as offline Black discursive practices leveraging Twitter's technological affordances (cf. Brock, 'Distributed Blackness') then migrating this collective to Mastodon, i.e. anti-Twitter will be fraught.

I am also struck by Flowers' framing of Black Twitter as a "gathering place" & "commons." This is an American luxury. Indian Twitter is a morass of censorship, RW trolls, misogyny, hate speech. Mastodon has been a respite for many who don't experience Twitter as a commons.

Like I haven't yet come across Sanghi Mastodon, which is incredible to me. I think the decentralized logic, the various instances, the RW's inability to manipulate trends & go viral all work in our favor. Mastodon is a potential haven-in-the-making for Indian progressives.

As one of hundreds of Indians who migrated in 2019 because Indian Twitter was flooded with trolls & actively censoring anti-BJP critique & anti-caste handles, having Mastodon instantly respond to hate speech, casteism, trolling suggested possibilities. Possibilities that were entirely outside the American (white/Black) experience of Twitter discourse.

I get that Black Twitter is uninterested in Global South encounters with racist, fascist hate speech, but that also reveals Black Twitter's fundamentally American gaze.

Even more American is this framing of "Marginalized users self-moderating will subject themselves to violence." Who is currently moderating violent content on Twitter? Marginalized Global South workers, employed in highly precarious Big Tech fronts in far-flung corners of Asia.

@Amruta1009

Hi Nirdiganta and Amruta,
I think there might be a few misconceptions about #Mastodon and the #FediVerse, which are in need to be clarified.

At several places you talk about an american-centered approach or gaze.
Fact is: the #FediVerse and especially #Mastodon are NOT American at all, but German/European.
The're some USAmerican Servers. Most current #Mastodon Servers are to be found in the German speaking countries of Germany and Austria.
https://joinfediverse.wiki/Local_instances

@Amruta1009

Of course the #FediVerse is international from the first concept onwards, but it started (kind of) German-ish.

Most white Germans have "enjoyed" an as racist socialisation as every white in the Global North and are as all the others benefiting from all the privileges that come with these power gradients that racism creates on purpose and are holding the power structures up as they have been created by the Europeans for the last 500+Years!

@Amruta1009

The Servers you are on right now Amruta is mastodon.lol and Nirdiganta is on the same Server as me, mastodon.social — both Servers are physically in Germany and are still having a majority of GermanAccounts.

These white Germans are majority wise left-leaning and liberal people, but have barely any education regarding AntiRacism.