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I'd like to take the time to talk about BBS/Bubble's recent update in the v8 release notes, as received at 10:32 AM on Jan. 10, 2024:
Bubble v8.0: Flairs and Locked Posts
I was very sad to see this feature be added to Bubble, especially with my previous support of most things @skyjake has done (lagrange is still my preferred gemini browser). Before I get into the consequences of the new "Flairs" feature, I want to take a detailed look at what was written about the feature, because I think some of the intentions behind the feature may be good.
A flair is a free-form text label that appears next to the user's name and provides some additional contextual information about the user. You may be familiar with this concept from sites like Reddit.
Flairs are essentially labels or badges. Labels and badges can be useful for identifying roles or characteristics about a person that this person wants to share with the world. A good example is that @skyjake has the "admin" badge. Another badge that may be useful is categorizing users in a subspace based on what topics they like to talk about. It can also be used in game subspaces to categorize players into teams. These are good uses of these badges.
A flair can only be bestowed on a user by the administator of the Bubble instance. Users themselves, even if they are moderators, cannot assign flairs.
But this is where Bubble's new badges are not like Reddit's badges at all. They are not used to categorize users into teams or topics. They are global badges assigned by the person who runs the Bubble instance (in the case of BBS, that would be @skyjake).
According to Skyjake, these badges have 3 diferent uses:
1. Role and Status
A flair can signal the user's role or status.
Using badges for roles is a good use. However, these release notes gloss over another purpose, which is the status. What is meant by status?
2. "soft" moderation via permanent labels
The flair can be used as a "soft" moderation tool to assign permanent labels on users, for instance if they have been warned of improper behavior.
These badges, or "flairs", are also used to assign permanent labels to users as a way of "moderating" them, and they are assigned by the administrator according to what they view as improper behavior.
3. Perceived Personality and Communication Characteristics
The flair can help manage expectations about communicating with a user, for example if they prefer to speak a particular language, or if they have a communication style that is easy for others to misunderstand.
They can also be used for a "particular language" a person prefers to speak, or a "communication style." Presumably, this means things like if someone prefers to speak "Yiddish" or "Arabic" or "Romanian". Communication styles are also involved here, which could be anything from "formal" to "blunt" and even "aggressive" or "manipulative", depending on what the administrator wishes to badge you with at any moment in time.
4. Tracking Behavioral Patterns
My main objective here is to help improve the quality of discussions by having some way of keeping track of behavioral patterns.
These badges are posted right next to your username and are global to the whole instance. As stated here, the badges are used to convey what the administrator perceives to be a person's behavioral patterns to everyone on the instance.
I firmly believe that the vast majority of people here are acting in good faith, but the nature of textual internet communication is that it is easy to misread or misunderstand what others are saying, due to differences in cultural backgrounds, social norms, and personal characteristics.
This is where I believe that @skyjake's intentions are good, even if I view them as extremely misguided. The stated purpose of badges is to put people's personality characteristics and communication styles front and center so that everyone can know who a person is said to be *before* they interact with them.
A well-chosen flair should help level the playing field, so one can interact with people in a manner that doesn't spin out of control unnecessarily.
Skyjake uses a particular phrase here, "level the playing field." I can only assume this means outing people about certain characteristics that the administrator perceives in that person.
Ideally, a flair is something that you can identify in yourself as well and perhaps even consider a strength.
According to Skyjake, these flairs are characteristics that one could identify oneself with and consider a strenght. What I want to highlight here is the use of non-definitive language. A flair is something that you *can* identify in yourself, and *perhaps* even consider a strength. "Can" and "Perhaps." Not *do*, but can and perhaps.
This non-definitive language pairs well with flairs being something an administrator labels you with and not something that a user labels themself with (which is more like Reddit's "flairs"). The intention behind this statement seems to be that administrators will sometimes only label you with things that you seem to have labelled yourself with. More on this below, in "The Problems with Badges" section.
The idea is not to name-call or judge people, but to make apparent attributes that emerge from one's posting history.
This next sentence is about the purpose of badges. They are not intended to name-call or judge. However, this is inconsistent with the descriptions above. They are intended to *label* and *judge* because these badges are used to label personal characteristics and statuses, including a person who has a label of a *moderation status.* The purpose of these badges are to know a person's labels before communicating with that person, to "level the playing field". These badges *do* label people and *do* judge people. Analyzing a person's behavioral patterns is making a judgement call about their behaviors.
You can request a specific flair by mentioning @admin, perhaps in a post in your user feed, or contacting me via some other way. I'm not promising you'll get the flair, but we can discuss it at least. Likewise, if you feel the flair assigned to you is inappropriate, please contact me:
The post ends with a statement that people must contact the administrator to get a label/badge they assigned removed, or that they can request badges but only if the administrator feels that that label applies to you according to them, or they feel that the label is appropriate for the platform ("I'm not promising you'll get the flair, but we can discuss it at least.").
All of the above shows possible, although misguided, good intentions. However, In one of Skyjake's comments on the post is the following:
When it comes to flairs, I think there needs to be some granularity in the available moderation actions between asking nicely and booting an account. Flairs may help here, although I'm sure I'll still tweak the implementation a little.
This was unexpected, but to me it demonstrates that these badges are not just about helping communication, but a form of punishment between "asking nicely" and "booting an account"; they are badges of shame being redressed as something better than that. If this intention comes out now when it was not in the original post, then it's possible the feature has other intentions that have not been revealed, like assigning a badge in hopes that a user faces the humiliation or leaves the platform.
Let us take a walk through the use of labels in History. I won't be able to cover every aspect of this topic, so I will focus on what I've studied personally, which is religion and Theology.
Labels are used in religion for various purposes, but two stand out:
1. Self-distinguishing from other groups of people
2. Ostracizing a group of people
Throughout the Tanakh (Old Testament) we see labels being applied to particular groups of people in order to both ostracize them or to distinguish oneself from them. Leviticus' Holiness Code offers a way of embodying this self-distinguishing from the Canaanites by limiting behavior and clothing to the opposite of Canaanite behavior and clothing. In Judges 12:6, the pronunciation of the word Shibboleth is used to determine what group of people someone belongs to by looking at their accent. In modern English, this word, Shibboleth, is now used to talk about any characteristic, manner of speaking, behavior pattern, or words of a person that identifies them with a particular group. Another term for this can be profiling and reading body language. The Bible of course also diverts this many times by showing that some of the greatest Biblical figures come from groups of people who were considered lowly.
A big part of my Senior Thesis for University was studying the Sodom and Gomorrah story (Genesis 18-19). The story of Sodom's destruction is the origin of the English words "Sodomy," "Sodomize," and "Sodomite" (originally meaning those from the city of Sodom). Over time these words came to be associated with sexual immorality, evil or sinful acts or humans, and most importantly, homosexuality. Homosexuality, then, becomes associated with the sinful behavior and evil acts of the Sodomites, particularly their lack of hospitality and rape, which are frequently associated with the Sodomites in the Bible.
Just after the Sodom and Gomorrah story is the story of Lot's daughters raping their father in his sleep, according to the plain meaning of the text. The children of the daughters become the ancestors of the Ammonites and Moabites, two sibling nations and enemies of Israel. The Bible uses this story to associate sinful behavior and rape to the origins of these nations (Ammon and Moab).
The Bible does diverte this later by describing Ruth, King David's Mother, as a Moabite. Jewish writings also associate Naamah, the wife of King Solomon (King David's son), with the Ammonites. Furthermore, Sodom gets its own bit of redemtion in Jeremiah 23 and in Jewish writings (e.g., Genesis Rabbah 41:4). But with all of this diverting of expectations, the message has gotten lost, and Sodom and Gomorrah are still associated with homosexuality to this day, and the term "Sodomite" is still used as one of the many derogatory terms towards gay people.
During both the united and divided Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, when many Israelites and other groups were still polytheistic, the texts show the rulers as persecuting the worshipping of other gods, particularly Baal and Asherah. It is always important to look at these texts from the point of view of the editors who most certainly edited these texts during a point in time when the Jews were exiled to Persia and becoming more monotheistic. While the Kings at this time were polytheistic, they are viewed negatively later on when the Jews were looking back on their history and trying to determine why their God persecuted his own people; the reason they came to is that the people were worshiping gods they shouldn't have been worshipping, and these gods perhaps weren't even real to begin with. And thus forms Monotheism. However, the way these texts have described people during this period of time has had lasting consequences on assocaiting these peoples and their religions with sinful behaviors, as if they were intentionally disobeying God. "Paganism" becomes a label associated with the negative behaviors associated with these peoples, particularly behaviors that might not have been as common as the texts claim (like human sacrifice). Some of these characteristics may even become associated with peoples like Samaritans, who were said to have lived in the area of Northern Israel after the Assyrians destroyed it.
During the time when Christianity was first beginning, Jews rejected Christianity and some of them began persecuting the Christians for a little while. As a survival mechanism, Christianity begins distinguishing itself from Judaism. Part of this distinguishing involves aggressive language towards Jews, and by the time the Gospel of John was written, "the Jews" becomes an amalgamation of different Jewish groups with different beliefs and behaviors. In this Gospel, rather than Jesus being a Jew within a Jewish society interacting with different groups of Jews, he becomes merely a person born into Judaism to prophecy the overturning of Judaism and the sinful nature of Jews. Thus, the conflations in the Gospel of John lead Christian readers, even today, to read John as a source of many anti-semitic tropes.
While the Christians were becoming more prominent within the Roman Empire, the Romans associated the Christians with various stereotypes, like being cannibalists or incestuous. Much of this comes from a misunderstanding of the language Christians used. This inspired much of the persecution of Christians during the first 3-4 Centuries CE. The Romans also pinned disasters on both Christians and Jews within the Empire, like associating plagues with Jews. Some of these disasters were thought to be the Grecco-Roman gods being angry at those who did not worship them, like the Jews and Christians. In this way, the religious labels become a way of blaming these populations for the disasters happening in the Empire.
During Islam's beginning, Jews and Christians are frequently associated with the "People of the Book." This is yet another label applied to religious individuals. The relationship between the People of the Book and the emerging Muslim community is complicated. Parts of the Qur'an is respectful of them, while other parts associate them with losing their way and diverting from what God intended. The Qur'an describes Muhammad being very respectful towards Christians and Jews early on. However, The Qur'an and Muhammad's tone gets more aggresive towards them after Christians and Jews reject Muhammad and his revelation.
When the Islamic Empire starts forming, Jews and Christians become second-class citicens with less opportunities in order to incentivize them to become Muslims. Part of this second-class citizen status is the inability to proselytize (i.e., gain new followers), and they had to wear clothing that was distinguishable from Muslims so that people would know who they are. This tactic was effective at converting many Jews to Islam so that they had more opportunities and jobs to choose from. Interestingly, the Islamic Empire was more accommodating towards Jews in this state than Europe was at the time.
Fuelled by the way Jews are described in much of the New Testament (particularly the Gospel of John, and 1-3 John), Jews began to be called "Christ-killers" for much of history. Jewish people's persecuted status also lent them towards survival mechanisms that required talking with ruling classes to make deals to ensure their survival and spreading throughout trading routes. For these reasons, Jews have also been described with all-encompassing stereotypes of being money-hungry, or even controlling and manipulating governments. Judaism's focus on humanism and being its own nation is also the focus of more anti-semitic tropes like having no loyalty to countries, when this is in fact not representative of Jewish teaching at all. Regardless, all of these stereotypes and tropes were used by European countries to target and persecute Jews, from being thrown out of countries like in France and Spain, to being forced to wear Badges of Shame so that Jewish people could be tracked and targeted and watched by people, to deincentivize their behavior. These actions were not just apparent in the Nazis, but in much of Europe. Books of the Talmud, an anthology of Jewish writings and commentaries, were also burned to deincentivize them being read. Jewish sympathizers were also deincentivized in interacting with Jewish people because of these Badges of Shame, also called Yellow Badges. When it came time, these Badges were used to unexpectedly pick out Jews to send to Concentration Camps, and to pick out people who may have had contact with Jews.
Labels in contemporary times have become a way of showing defiance to the persecution of groups of people and of showing pride of being who you are. This is exemplary in wearing religious clothing out of religious freedom, in wearing badges during LGBTQ+ Pride Events, in labelling oneself with something traditionally regarded as a "disorder" or "illness", and in "taking back" terms that used to have derogatory meanings. This is a way of taking something that was negative and turning it positive, and it is always done to oneself and not to others.
The difference between labelling oneself and labelling others is all too important nowadays, when the two get conflated. Labelling oneself is recognizing one aspect of yourself and not being afraid of it. Labelling others is a way of forcing them into your box or stereotypes, or viewing them as an "other." When a person comes to label themself with the label people have othered them with is when one takes a negative and embraces it as a positive. But this can only be done by the person themselves. When you try to force a label onto someone else, even if you intend it to be a positive, it has negative consequences on that person, from making them feel like they are associated with something negative or sinful, which could reduce their self-esteem or make them feel like they have no positive qualities, to them taking these negative attributes on as part of their personalities - because if you're going to be called something, you might as well be what they are calling you. This is a self-destructive form of defiance.
Turning a label from a negative into a positive is called semantic amelioration, but there is also semantic pejoration, which is taking a positive term and turning it negative, often by associating stereotypes with them, and often to confuse people about what a group of people mean when they use this term. Great examples in contemporary times are the words "queer" (which has undergone both pejoration and amelioration) and "woke" (which has undergone pejoration, and is currently starting to undergo amelioration as a reaction).
I've been watching The Traitors recently. It's a reality TV show much like the game "Mafia". There's versions of it for the US, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and many other countries. I've watched the US, UK, Australian, and Canadian versions and a couple of things jump out to me:
What this has shown to me is that people can't read body language or human intentions worth crap, not even skilled professionals. It has also made me reconsider how ambiguous body language really is from a linguistics point of view. Finally, it has also shown me that people are very bad at using reason and logic and applying real evidence, and instead judge others based on their feelings, or more commonly, what other people say about that person. These feelings about a person consist of reading too much into body language, anxiety, and overactiveness, from the point of view of what is considered "normal" for that particular person. All of this has led to a vast majority of the "faithful" (the good people) getting voted off by other faithfuls with little manipulation necessary by the traitors. It gives me a greater appreciation for the double-empathy problem, and makes me wonder if this double-empathy theory should be expanded further.
Labelling people, especially for the purposes of moderation or ridiculing them publicly is extremely harmful to both the community and the person themself. Labels can sometimes act like self-fulfilling prophecies. When someone has been labelled as something by a community or someone else of authority (like parents or community leaders), that person tends to take on those qualities as a way of dealing with the ridicule. Again, like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It can also lead to the community expecting a particular characteristic from a person at all times. However, human personalities change over time, and a quality that appears in one situation doesn't appear in other situations. Personalities cannot be labelled so definitively, because one's personality doesn't just change over time, it changes with the people being interacted with, and it changes based on the time and day and based on personal situations that are going on in someone's life. It may also change based on how an interaction reminds someone of past events. This is why many definitive, all-encompassing labels are not useful, and Psychologists do not use them this way.
A community can also bring out certain characteristics in a person. The need to blend in or conform is one example of this, but another example may very well be the need to be defiant or provocative. This leads to a form of "selection bias" where the characteristics of a person are selected from particular situations. Again, this doesn't represent that person's personality fully, and so using a label as a defining attribute of that person's personality can be harmful.
I view these Badges of Shame as the internet equivalent of the Nazis slapping a Jewish symbol on all Jews and requiring they wear those symbols. It is very clear to me given the recent comments by skyjake that these Badges of Shame are meant to be a humiliation tactic to deincentivize behaviors, and as mentioned in the release post, these badges are "permanent," which doesn't allow for the personality changes or development of character in human beings. The Nazis of course were not the only ones to use Badges of Shame to deincentivize behaviors. These badges facilitate discrimination, segregation, and tracking, and have been used that way for a very long time.
These "flairs" that Bubble now uses are not like Reddit flairs at all. Reddit flairs are self-applied and are not used for moderation. They are not ways to ridicule and publicly out people as one thing. Most importantly, Reddit flairs are not usually prescribed by anyone other than the the person who gets the flair.
Humiliation is an intense experience that people can feel and can lead to depression, suicide, anger, defiance, resentment, violence, and extreme behaviors, including terrorism and delinquency. It does not deincentivize behaviors, it makes them more extreme or it completely shatters someone's self-esteem. People who feel like they are voiceless and helpless may act out or raise their voices louder, or to make them completely disappear. Humiliation has been used against LGBTQ+ people, against Jews and other religious people, and against persons of color. Humiliation is rarely a proportionate response to behaviors, especially behaviors that involve simple arguments.
Using these badges as a "'soft' moderation tool", like @Skyjake says in his v8 release notes, is precisely what I have a problem with. These are in fact "Badges of Shame" meant to "keep track of behavioral patterns" in order to "deincentivize harmful and negative behavior" just like the Nazis used Badges of Shame to keep track of behaviors in order to deincentivize the spreading of Jewish ideas. It does all of this through the *humiliation* and shame of having to wear a badge with a derogatory or hurtful term.
I'm not going to sit here and just criticize everything and not offer up a solution. There are many solutions, but the one that can take the good things about this badges system and limit the negatives is to create a list of badges and allow users to apply a badge out of this list themselves, rather than forcing a label on them. The idea that communication style labels can help communication requires that we do not promote or associate stereotypes to people, and that people are not targeted on the platform.
I would firmly accept the idea of self-applied badges out of a limited list of badges, and would perhaps even use one of those badges, like a "religious" badge or a "possibly Autistic" badge, but an administrator labelling me something just because I interacted with a couple of people within a specific community in a certain way that the person feels matches a particular stereotype just feels wrong. What is even more wrong, and feels quite petty, is taking things people say about themselves and trying to apply it to their whole personality as if that person's whole personality and identity rests around this one attribute that comes out in particular settings. Personalities do not work that way because people are multi-faceted. The multi-faceted way that personalities are shown is a good case for being able to have multiple badges, and it's a good case for allowing humans to be multi-faceted, rather than putting them into boxes of your own devising.