I have never met a medium as polite as Mastodon. Sure, even here I have a met impolite people, but only very rarely.

In comment sections of news media, and on Facebook and elsewhere, I have been verbally abused for years for presenting political views, and I have experienced so many death threats, I stopped counting.

But not on Mastodon.

That is my review and you can quote me on that @Gargron.

in reply to Randahl Fink

I agree. In general I think this correlates to ppls knowledge/education. Especially on FB whataboutism, massive lack of information paired with disinformation is common. Even in non political specialized groups like art/design/pets ppl did cut each others throats about nothing. The tone is very much different, less on topic, very much less open, less tolerant & often very negative.
in reply to Randahl Fink

I have had the same experience. I had 20k followers on Twitter, and I have, what, maybe 6k here. But I get five times the engagement here, and a fifth of the drive-by ass-clowns.

OTOH, tho, several of my Black friends tell me it's very much worse for them here.

I do not know what to make of that. I believe my friends, but for whatever reason, I hardly ever see it, myself.

in reply to Randahl Fink

Well said Randahl. Feel like this is due to the platform's roots as a safe space for marginalized people. While it has evolved from there, it has a foundation of inclusivity and kindness which continues to be spread through a loose set of community standards. When folks show up with negativity and bad attitudes they generally receive a cold reception, so it doesn't spread.

Whatever the reasons. It is mostly a nice place, and that is very special, particularly now.

in reply to Randahl Fink

@altim That is true, but more importantly, being impolite gets you blocked and threatening violence gets you reported and as a repeat offender, if your moderator doesn't moderate you, your instance gets defederated.

Just a reminder that truth.social is based on Mastodon. It should be a normal fediverse instance on the technical level* that basically everyone defederated from.

*they edited a lot of stuff so I'm not entirely sure