Tag: MeWe

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Miscellaneous geekery

Google+ diaspora: RSS feeds

Like a lot of tabletop gamers, I’ve gotten tons of great mileage out of Google+. I started using it in 2012, and for the past six years it’s been my first stop for all things gaming-related. I met my Seattle gaming group through G+. I’ve made friends via the site. I’ve learned about oodles and oodles of cool and weird stuff I never would have heard of otherwise.

When the shutdown was announced, I was optimistic that a reasonably solid replacement would emerge. It hasn’t yet, for me, but today there was a glimmer of hope: RSS feeds.

For context, here’s why I’m not having much luck with the alternatives I’ve tried so far.

Social media thunderdome

MeWe was my first stop — the first G+ exodus destination to gather some critical mass, and it did so within hours of the shutdown announcement. The functionality was great. But when I asked them a simple question about acting against hate groups and hate speech, they gave a bullshit response. Maybe things will change on that front sometime, but for now MeWe is a hard pass.

diaspora* doesn’t have blocking functionality. In 2018. It has an ignore feature, which isn’t the same thing at all.) No thank you.

Facebook was a shady privacy nightmare years ago, the first time I quit the site, but it eventually got better; I came back. Then they got super shady and gross with the whole Cambridge Analytica thing, and I quit again. Also a hard pass.

I’ve never found Twitter workable for RPG discussion, but I do like Mastodon. The problem is that I can’t seem to get my brain to “think in Twitter.” It also has a small user population (at least in the RPG sphere) and doesn’t seem likely to pick up anytime soon, but being a Twitter-alike is the thing that fits worst for me because G+ is not a Twitter-alike in really any way.

Other options I’ve researched but haven’t tried yet seem even smaller and/or less well-developed than the places I have tried (Hubzilla, Friendica, etc.).

Feed me

But over on G+ there was a glimmer of sunshine: Aaron Griffin pointed out RSS feeds and the option of filling part of the void with a good feed reader. He suggested Feedly and Inoreader, and I checked both of them out (as well as a couple others).

Both have a clean interface and an Android app, but Inoreader has fewer features gated behind fees so I went that route. (Notably, if you want more than 100 feeds with Feedly, you have to pay to subscribe.)

I started by grabbing all the blogs from my own blogroll (in the sidebar). Then I visited every blog on Alex Schroeder’s Old School RPG Planet site and added all the ones that looked interesting to me. Ditto for his Indie RPG Planet. That’s pushed me well over 100 blogs in my feed.

I’ve still got the massive OSR Blog Roll & Social Contacts Google Sheet to go through, too!

And so far, so good. I may have tried an RSS reader a decade ago and forgotten about it, but I really don’t remember ever using one before. It seems like an excellent solution for the “I want to read about cool RPG stuff” side of the G+ equation.

I’m still not sure what to do about the social side, but progress is progress.

Out now: The Unlucky Isles

The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], the first system-neutral guidebook for my Godsbarrow fantasy campaign setting, is now on DriveThruRPG.
Categories
Miscellaneous geekery RPG community

Google+ diaspora: MeWe isn’t for me

Having seen several folks I respect voicing concerns about MeWe, hate speech, and hate groups, and after watching the relevant section of the YouTube interview where they addressed that topic, I found the official line pretty unconvincing.

So I emailed MeWe a question about their policy on hate speech and hate groups:

“Howdy! I’m a tabletop gamer who is part of the “great G+ exodus,” and MeWe is emerging as a consensus social network for many people in my circles. One concern that I have, and which I keep seeing raised by others, is MeWe’s policy on hate speech and hate groups.

I know you have a policy, and it’s admirably clear and direct. But do you ban hate groups on MeWe? Do you have examples of groups you’ve banned? Or of specific types of hate speech that have resulted in official action?

I’m not talking about specific political affiliations in the sense of mainstream political parties or ideologies, but actual hate groups: the alt-right, white supremacists and nationalists, anti-LBGTQ religious groups, and the like.

I like everything I see about MeWe except this — the absence of evidence that your policies apply to these folks, and have been applied to them. I’d love to hear your thoughts, and to share your response with other G+ folks who have similar concerns. Thanks in advance!”

Here’s their official response:

“Thank you for taking the time to contact us and thank you for using MeWe. MeWe has a built in self-reporting system for all members to block and report members and groups believed to be breaking our Terms. MeWe has no political bias as a company and no algorithms that could perform any kind of bias censorship whatsoever. Our CEO is a Libertarian and well known for his opposition to political censorship, political bias, and shadow banning on social media.

We are continuously building new moderation tools for MeWe group owners and members. Group owners can already assign as many admins to their groups as they want – and all group owners and their admins can block and remove any group member, as well as change group member permissions individually if necessary.

When it comes to tolerance of different political viewpoints – MeWe stands out from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google. MeWe doesn’t shadow ban, has no political bias, doesn’t manipulate your newsfeed, has no facial recognition, no spyware, no boosted anything, and NO BS. MeWe members and their data are #Not4Sale.

All social media sites have ongoing daily issues with disruptive trolls and bots, and MeWe is no different. We take on those challenges every day to make MeWe delightful and safe for all members. We’re not a haven for violence inciters or porno – there are other sites for those people to go to – not MeWe. We like to say “MeWe is for the good guys.” We’re not perfect – and we’re working on making MeWe better and better every single day.

Bottom line: MeWe is for law-abiding citizens worldwide regardless of their politics, religion, sexuality, and other traits. Of course due to our privacy guidelines we cannot provide examples of any persons or groups that have been reported, and understandably we do not provide examples of any actions the company takes to remove violators. We stand by our Terms and our principles””

That’s a non-response response, which is the same thing as a “no,” and it does nothing to address my concern that MeWe is a happy home for hate groups, and a platform disinclined to boot people for hate speech.

Checking on something like this would never have crossed my mind when I joined Google+ in 2012, but times have changed. All I wanted was something that demonstrates that MeWe implements their policy, and that we have at least some overlap in what we consider a hate group. They couldn’t clear even that fairly low bar.

I’m not devoting time and energy to, or associating myself with, a social media site that won’t repudiate hate speech and back that repudiation up with action. I deleted my MeWe account.

Out now: The Unlucky Isles

The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], the first system-neutral guidebook for my Godsbarrow fantasy campaign setting, is now on DriveThruRPG.