Trouble in Pachyderm Land (updated)

Tue, 01/10/2023 - 8:41am

A few months back, like millions of other Twitter users after the platform was taken over by Elon Musk, I turned to the open source, federated social media platform Mastodon as an alternative. While Mastodon is definitely undergoing some growing pains, for the most part I'm pretty happy with it...so much so that I've actually signed on as a monthly Patreon supporter of the founder & primary instance administrator Eugen Rochko.

Unfortunately, last night I received an email notice which illustrated one of the key problems with Mastodon--a problem which, as it happens, is also at the core of Twitter's current woes: Content moderation policies & enforcement.

Here's the email I received:

Subject: Your posts on @charlesgaba@mastodon.social have been removed

Posts removed

Some of your posts have been found to violate one or more community guidelines and have been subsequently removed by the moderators of mastodon.social.

Posts cited:

You still have until January 15th to #GetCovered in most states!

Visit HealthCare.Gov TODAY! #ACA #xp

(link to my 13 Open Enrollment tips post)

Jan 10, 2023, 02:20

You still have until January 15th to #GetCovered in most states!

Visit HealthCare.Gov TODAY! #ACA #xp

(link to my 13 Open Enrollment tips post)

Jan 09, 2023, 21:26

You still have until January 15th to #GetCovered in most states!

Visit HealthCare.Gov TODAY! #ACA #xp

(link to my 13 Open Enrollment tips post)

Jan 09, 2023, 21:09

You still have until January 15th to #GetCovered in most states!

Visit HealthCare.Gov TODAY! #ACA #xp

(link to my 13 Open Enrollment tips post)

Jan 09, 2023, 20:26

Here's the 226 counties where folks earning $30K/year can get a *FREE* (as in, $0-premium) GOLD plan!

(And millions more have until Jan. 15th to get dirt cheap healthcare coverage!)
#ACA #GetCovered #xp
(link to my post listing the counties with $0-premium plans for those earning $30K or less)

Jan 09, 2023, 17:11

Submit an appeal

If you believe this is an error, you can submit an appeal to the staff of mastodon.social.

It's important to note that I've posted the "Star Wars"-inspired graphics to help promote awareness of the Open Enrollment Period deadline on Twitter for years without any complaints or takedown notices. In fact, I even posted these graphics (along with a dozen or so similar ones) on Mastodon about a month ago to promote the initial December 15th deadline, again, without any problems or complaints.

Also note that the email from Mastodon.Social doesn't clarify which of their community guidelines any of these posts violated, so let's take a look:

Server rules

Sexually explicit or violent media must be marked as sensitive when posting

No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, or casteism

No incitement of violence or promotion of violent ideologies

No harassment, dogpiling or doxxing of other users

No content illegal in Germany

Do not share intentionally false or misleading information

Hmmmm...well, none of these posts include intentionally false or misleading information. To the best of my knowledge nothing in them is illegal in Germany. I haven't harassed, dogpiled or doxxed anyone. They're not inciting violence or promoting violent ideologies (unless calling attention to the tendency of both Jedi Knights and Sith Lords to chop off people's arms with light sabers is considered to be "promoting" them). There's no racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia or casteism included (again, unless you consider Jedis/Sith to be "castes" which seems like a bit of a stretch). Finally, none of these posts are sexually explicit.

The only one which seems remotely plausible is that the graphics include "violent media." I can't fathom anyone seriously thinking that screen shots from Star Wars movies are "violent media" considering that 5 of the 6 original films were rated PG in America. I suppose it's possible that they're considered the equivalent of an "R" in Germany? I agree that I forgot to include a "sensitive media" content warning on them...because, again, it simply never occurred to me that this would be considered "sensitive media."

It's possible that the first three posts were removed due to being considered copyright violations of Disney/LucasFilm. However, people post Star Wars memes all the time on every social media platform--it's pretty ubiquitous--without having cease & desist orders sent to them.

It's also possible that these were flagged/removed due to them being considered "spam"...that is, I posted a series of nearly-identical posts with the graphic included being the only distinguishing factor. Spam isn't listed in the Mastodon.Social server rules, but it's considered a generally-understood no-no.

However, none of these possible "violations" apply to the fourth post removed...the one linking to the list of U.S. counties where Americans earning up to $30K/year are eligible for $0-premium ACA policies. There isn't any embedded media in that one--just a link to a blog post assisting people in enrolling in inexpensive healthcare coverage. There's a preview thumbnail included in that link, but even that simply shows gold & silver bars to symbolize ACA Gold and Silver healthcare policies.

Perhaps the Mastodon.Social moderators don't understand that I don't work for HealthCare.Gov, nor is it a private corporation? It's a public website operated by the U.S. federal government to help Americans enroll in (mostly subsidized) healthcare coverage. I don't receive any commissions or payments from the government for encouraging people to sign up.

I've submitted the following formal appeal of these posts being removed to Mastodon.Social (there's a character limit on the appeal form):

I'm confused re. why these posts were removed. They don't seem to violate any Mastodon.Social guidelines. If it's because the some of them include "violent imagery"...these are screenshots from the PG-rated (in the U.S.) *Star Wars* films. If it's because they're considered "spam" (due to the repetitive nature of the posts) it seems a bit excessive to remove *all* of them. And none of this applies to the last post which has NO media & different content/a different link. Please advise, thank you.

I'll follow up here as soon as I receive a response, but this has definitely sullied an otherwise positive experience, and again underscores the larger issue of content moderation.

UPDATE: OK, that was quick!

From Eugen Rocho, founder of Mastodon & chief admin of Mastodon.Social:

The posts were reported as spam, it had nothing to do with the images. I apologize on behalf of the mod team, I told them many times to look more closely when a report is about an account with many followers, but the posts did look like spam at a quick glance.

OK, so it had nothing to do with copyright or "violent imagery" issues; it was simply the fact that I posted a thread of identical posts with the exact same wording in each (the only change in any of them is the graphic used). That's reasonable for them to object to.

Removing the final post, on the other hand, made no sense at all...which Mr. Rocho acknowledges in his response.