An open letter
Michele Kipiel
Public
Seen by 70
Dear fellow members,
the events that unfolded over the past few days have put our cooperative to the test, and we failed miserably.
Many voices calling for change were silenced in the past, be it by negligence or by sheer lack of commitment by those, whose position of privilege allowed to disregard such calls. By failing to listen, we became the people MLK warned us about: the white moderates who are more devoted to order than to justice.
We wasted precious time and energy in endless debates about trivial details, calling for the creation of ever new committees and processes, and we eventually lost sight of the only true reason our cooperative came to existence: to wrestle control of our social media out of the hands of the rich, white, capitalist elite.
I am writing this letter to extend my personal apologies to all the people who felt betrayed by our failure and to promise them I am here to put my energy, time, skills and reputation on the line to repair this institution and turn it into a place where they will be safe again. A place for them to call home.
But promises are not enough. Words, however strong or emotional, are but empty utterances if they are not followed by swift, honest, transparent action guided by total commitment. And, with your help, I intend to trigger a new course that will shake social.coop at the foundations and turn it into something we will be proud of for years to come.
First of all, I invite all those who revel in relativistic attitudes towards racism, sexism, homo/trans-phobia and any other form of bigotry to instantly leave the cooperative and never come back. You are not welcome, and you will never be.
Second, I propose we close down registrations for all the time it will take us to heal our cooperative. This might sound like an aggresive move, but I believe it’s the only reasonable thing to do in this diffucult moment. A joint statement will replace our homepage for the time the instance will be closed, to inform people about our struggle to improve.
Third, we will follow the advice of those fellow members who chose to weather the storm with us despite being part of those groups we failed to protect in the first place. I will not name names here, but if you have been involved in the chat, you know who I am talking about.
We shall reboot the cooperative with a core group of collaborators, deliberately chosen, and not all white men. I invite all men, including myself, to take a back seat in this process unless explicitly asked by the core group.
We shall make sure we have social infrastructure in place for handling conflict and abuse before launch, including a rock-solid code of conduct that will state our absolute rejection of any form of hate speech, racism, bigotry and *phobia front and center.
We shall grow our core user base deliberately, in small groups, and attempt to tap more diverse networks, to combat the network effects that brought social.coop on the brink of collapse
We shall make sure all the skills and resources needed to maintain the organization are in place from the start and focus on sustainability. We can never find ourselves again in the situation where a single member leaving or being overwhelmed with external responsibilities exposes the instance to the risk of downtime, poor performance or sluggish maintenance.
We will make sure at least one of the core collaborators is an experienced community manager, with previous experience handling diverse, international communities across many timezones.
I chose to stay because I believe we can do much, much better than we did so far, and because I am deeply committed to the idea of platform cooperativism as a means to achieve liberation, justice and equality for all.
At the same time I am painfully aware that my position of absolute privilege, which I am granted under the current capitalist partiarchy, puts me at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to understading the needs of those who are oppressed by the same system.
My position in the new social.coop will therefore be that of an enthusiastic contributor and ally to those who will be part of the core group and nothing more, unless explicitly asked for, as intellectual honesty demands I give up any position in which I could wield even the slightest bit of power.
With respect, hope and unchanged enthusiasm,
MK
EDIT 02/09/18: replaced "take the instance off-line" with "close down registrations" as many members reported it was misleading and suggested we were going to shut down completely.
Cathal Garvey Sat 1 Sep 2018 8:13PM
@muninn I'm raising the subject of data export on Riot with @wulee and I'm sure it'll be online shortly, if it's just a toggle.
If it's not a "toggle" I'm happy to help with manual tech ops if necessary as a one-time "clean-up operation" to separate people's account data at a database level (fair warning folks, I'm not a DBA), so we can be nice and GDPR compliant about the shutdown / migration.
muninn Sun 2 Sep 2018 11:17PM
I'm wondering if this isn't a language issue, in that American English, "shut down" mostly applies to things like machines and servers. I understood it to mean that the server would be temporarily taken offline, it appears that you meant that we'd stop taking new users for a while. @michelekipiel
Robert Benjamin Sat 1 Sep 2018 6:34PM
At this point with so much damage and mistrust built up both on and off the platform (coupled with a mountain of operational disfunction) not sure there is a better way forward for SC.
If the Membership votes to restructure I offer my support (as Michele outlined) to a diverse leadership group (as needed) to make SC function and serve the need of a diverse set of members.
My hope is that it be a place seen as and genuinely does welcome and value contributions from all its members regardless of their background.
Still believe in the power of user ownership to transform the caustic online world for the sake the planet and our physical and mental health but if care is not given from the very beggining to empower those who have historically been kept out of the decision making process achieving this will be impossible.
Thank you to all of you who have devoted time and energy to bringing SC to life and to those that will continue the endeavor of making it better.
Deleted User Sat 1 Sep 2018 7:22PM
I am glad this conversation has started and I really appreciate the things you've written. While I decided to move away from social coop, I dont know that things need to shut down for useful lessons to be learned. Whatever people choose to do, I want to say while things happened that weren't good, social coop has a lot going for it and I'm pretty sure will emerge for the better. The problems arent insurmountable, although I know when everyone is stressed and theres a lot of conflict it can seem like they are, but they really aren't. Best of luck with it all.
Michele Kipiel Sat 1 Sep 2018 8:27PM
We will do our best to migrate to new servers before the time is up, hopefully no one will loose their handle. But we definitely need to put the instance on hold and stop accepting new members so we can take the time to reorganise.
Neville Park Sat 1 Sep 2018 11:52PM
Thank you very much for your work and your critiques. Thank you for pushing us to be better.
G I McGrew Sat 1 Sep 2018 8:05PM
I am seeing something very similar play out in my (soon to be former?) workplace, where being nonwhite, neurodivergent, and queer femme has meant being punished for speaking out, for not knowing my place in an organization where order and comfort are prioritized over justice and change. The "tranquilizing drug of gradualism" (MLK), indeed.
It has made what has unfolded lately particularly poignant and exhausting. I have wanted to have more energy to speak up, to dive in. And not had enough to give, was uncomfortable in speaking out.
With what I sincerely believe is a firm commitment by the membership to rise to this challenge going forward, I want to trust that we can indeed move forward.
These organizational wounds and future scars are real. I know we cannot necessarily make it up to the individuals we drove away or drained out, the relationships broken beyond repair. But. I am personally choosing to remain at social.coop because I want to be a part of this instance emerging as a place truly worth calling a home within the fediverse.
Thank you for this letter, MK. It means a lot to me.
I hope to work beside you and lend what skills and strength I can in order to effect positive change.
Isabel Sat 1 Sep 2018 8:30PM
I'm new and missing context, but if the co-op hasn't been able to take a firm position against hate speech and abuse, then I can see why a reboot along the lines laid out is necessary. If anyone can fill me in I'd be grateful, although I don't want to cause an unneeded rehashing.
emi do Sat 1 Sep 2018 11:01PM
@michelekipiel first of all, thank you. I can see the heart and care that has gone into crafting this letter and I too look forward to the co-operative emerging stronger for having been through this process.
Recognizing that this probably isn't the place to debate the minutiae of your proposed actions, I'm wondering where it would be appropriate to address concerns? There are a lot of proposed actions so I can't imagine having a thread for each of them is feasible, and yet I feel uncomfortable with many of them though I agree wholeheartedly in the spirit behind them.
Alan (@alanz) · Sat 1 Sep 2018 7:23PM
Its funny, I got the email, and went to social.coop, and got a 404. And thought it was already a fait accompli. But it was just something transient, I presume.