@gimulnautti We’re sadly aware and we have been trying our best to tell everyone that this is harmful for everyone involved but there are a few accounts we can’t seem to get through to.
We get the absolutely horrendous circumstances but it doesn’t help when the repercussions are lost trust for everyone and suspended accounts.
Needlessly to say, mass tagging and direct message tagging of people you don’t know are against our rules at Gaza Verified and we will not be challenging suspensions that arise because of this. We have in the past and we’ve had accounts repeating the same thing over and over again even after we advocated for them multiple times. You agree to these rules before you sign up for a verification call and they’re there to keep you from getting limited and suspended.
We will continue to try and explain best we can why Mastodon and the fediverse is different to mass mainstream platforms.
The best thing you can do here is to forge real connections and friendships. The more people follow and interact with you, the more they will share your posts and the more support you will see. You might be able to reach a few thousand people with a mass message but it is meaningless if your account is then muted/blocked/suspended. And it greatly harms the other people from Gaza who are not doing this and what we’ve been trying to so (and succeeding in doing) here: countering mainstream propaganda, building trust, and fostering a community that is welcoming to our friends and families in Palestine.
To our Gaza Verified family, if you’re reading this: please also watch out for this behaviour between yourselves and talk to each other about it also. Joy, Aseel, Aya, Fabio and myself are volunteers with limited time. We cannot (and will not) police close to 150 people/families. We shouldn’t have to. We’re here to help keep your accounts from being unfairly shut down because of who you are and to protect your voices on this platform. But we need your help to do this.
And to anyone who receives mass-tagged messages from someone who is Gaza Verified, please let me or @fabio know before you report them. We can try to talk to them and explain things. Not everyone is technically savvy and some people are just following what they see others doing or what they’ve been told works. Remember that these are people facing genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and settler colonialism. Palestine has one of the most highly-educated populations in the world and yet even their ability to earn a living has been denied to them. Their schools, workplaces, hospitals, even their fields and farms have been destroyed as part of Israel’s ongoing genocide. So, please, have some compassion and at least don’t report them right away. Let us try and talk to them first.
Thank you!
💕
