Goodbye Playvicious.Social!

Playvicious.social was a Black-led instance/server on the Fediverse. It was the only one that was explicitly Black led and where the admin and mod team made a point of making a good space for Black users. Playvicious was harrassed off the Fediverse.

This is horrible and sad - Playvicious' shutdown is a huge loss to the Fediverse. The instance has been there from the start, a great home for many people. Their Mod/Admin Team has made so many thoughtful contributions to political discourse in fediverse space, people have helped other instances to organize, offered help with making other instances less white dominated, and many other things.

The Fediverse is anti-Black. That doesn't mean every single person in it is intentionally anti-Black, but the structure of the Fediverse works in a way that harrassment can go on and on and it is often not visible to people who aren't at the receiving end of it. People whom "everyone likes" get away with a ton of stuff before finally *some* instances will isolate their circles. Always not all. And a lot of harrassment is going on behind the scenes, too.

One of our mods said we can cut ties with actively anti-Black instances, moderate users we can reach and work to not harbor anti-Black sentiments, but it isn't enough to change the general anti-Blackness of the Fediverse.

So what is going to change this climate in the Fediverse? We have the hope that this climate can be changed.

These structures are created by every one of us living with the status quo, normalizing it. For example by trying to stay out of conflicts, which is giving racists and harassers the impression that they can do whatever and it will be of no consequence.

Racists know that it's hard to take action against them if they can employ passive aggressive strategies. They act in a way that their racist behavior can be interpreted as something different, and then accuse people who call it out of making it all up. They know it's hard to take action if they send their shit as DMs and put on an "innocent" facade.

So, perhaps what we* need to do more, is to talk more about racism on the Fedi, even if it feels bad for white folks because it's "just lip service". It probably is. But maybe we need to start with the lip service. First, it could get the ball rolling, because when people take us at our word, there is an opportunity to take action, to believe the people targeted by racism. And, secondly, it helps to slowly create a climate where it feels like people do care, and it's not okay to behave shitty towards BIPoC and especially Black users of the Fedi. (*and especially by this paragraph you probably guessed it: we're a mostly white mod team on a mostly white instance, so this gets reflected a lot in this text.)

From the whole Weirder Earth moderation team we want to say that we will participate in making the Fediverse an unsafe space for racists and in creating a climate free of anti-Black sentiment. If you hear of anything bad coming from users we can reach/moderate, please contact us. If you see us fuck up, please call us in or out, directly or through another mod. If you just need people to listen and acknowledge racist stuff that is happening, we will be among the people who listen.

To anyone who thinks they haven't perpetuated anti-Blackness, they just happen to dislike almost all Black leaders in the Fediverse, consider this: You don't have to "like" someone to respect their work and their identity. Is your pervasive dislike of Black folks here affecting your ability to participate in an anti-racist space? If you are not interested in participating in an anti-racist space, this corner of the Fediverse may not be for you.

Are0h who ran Playvicious wrote in a pinned toot: "My commitment to progress is not based on being liked. I just want us to get free."

Thank you to everyone who contributed to organizing and running Playvicious for the last 3 years, above all Are0h, but also everyone on the moderation team. Thank you for the awesomeness, the energy, the work you all did to empower, fight bullshit, and make a difference. PV and everyone of its users who leaves the Fedi will be missed.