Last night I wrote two separate blog posts. First, I started documenting my email exchange with Adam Newbold. He already shared his half of the emails so I was considering sharing mine. It was confusing to have my side be blank in what he shared, because you can’t tell anything about my tone or what I was saying. I was really trying to resolve this with Adam privately where we could have a meaningful discussion.
The second blog post I drafted was one of the longest I’ve ever written for this blog. It started by setting the background 8 years ago. Why I built Micro.blog and how we’ve wanted a safe community from day one. Why when Elon Musk bought Twitter, our founding principles were already aligned with what would come next for the social web. I think it was a good post. But it also meandered around, telling the story again from my perspective, and it was not going to deescalate an issue that has been completely blown out of proportion.
I threw both posts away.
Tensions are high this week. Maybe I should’ve given Adam more space to deal with the election in whatever way he thought was productive. I still believe his personal attacks on me went too far. Not just the language he used in emails, but in Mastodon posts about me and boosting negative comments. It deeply affected me.
Social media has a tendency to amplify disagreements. It encourages followers to pile on. It spreads misinformation and exaggerations. Everything is an outrage. I’ve written extensively about this but I got so pulled in, I made some dumb mistakes myself. I got defensive when my integrity was repeatedly questioned.
Yesterday I reset my approach, slowed down, got back to my values.
There was concern that Micro.blog is not a safe place for LGBTQ+ people, so I updated our community guidelines with an expanded section on welcoming users and our respect for diversity and the LGBTQ+ community. It’s not perfect but it’s progress. There was concern about the perceived size of Vincent Ritter’s role, so I scrapped the “team” page and talked with him privately about the best way forward.
Vincent, for his part, has blogged why he kept silent. Some people have accepted the twisted narrative that Vincent is a bigot and fascist. If they truly believe that, his post won’t be enough of an apology. But it’s enough for me.
It’s enough for me because becoming a more inclusive, welcoming community isn’t about cutting people down when they make a mistake, so all that’s left are people who agree with you. It’s finding a way to embrace multiple, differing groups. It’s encouraging respectful, thoughtful behavior, and proportionality in our response. And sometimes it’s giving someone the benefit of the doubt and a second chance.
Micro.blog is a good place for LGBTQ+ people. It’s a good place because we have been trying to lay the foundation for a safe community for 8 years. It’s a good place because we are passionate about understanding why communities work and how to make them better. I know there are LGBTQ+ people who have been happy here, who have found the perfect place for their blog and a community that respects them, and I hope they stay with us.
Thank you everyone who has supported the platform.
