I suggest that this proposed policy is more significant than it first appears. It effectively forces all SocialHub members to (in turn) enforce social justice on all communities using their software. Failure to do so will result in the contributor’s exclusion from the SocialHub community and the support that this community offers.
I understand that this proposal is motivated by a genuine desire to protect vulnerable people. I commend that desire.
Enforcing a single world view (whether that of social justice or any other) on all independent social projects, however, is a Very Bad Idea.
If you disagree with that statement, it may be that you have complete confidence in social justice as world view. Perhaps you believe that social justice is so clear and obvious that anyone who questions it must be motivated by a desire to retain their unjustly-held power (bigots, fascists, etc.). Perhaps you suspect me of having these motives.
It is precisely this (over)confidence in the virtue of a particular world view, however, which is the problem. The only way to prevent significant overreach of a world view is for each person to have the right to question and critique orthodox beliefs.
Enforcing social justice creates a new group of vulnerable people (those who disagree with it) and justifies harm against them (as ‘accountability’ in the form of cancellation, harassment, etc.). This harm is justified by the overconfidence mentioned in my last paragraph - the belief that dissenters must be driven by selfish motives and, therefore, that the faithful have an obligation to punish them and lay the blame at their feet. This is the same logic that oppressive regimes use to brutally punish dissenters and blame the dissenters for their own punishment.
You might respond by saying that you do not wish to prevent people from discussing ideas, you only wish to prevent harm to vulnerable people. To that I suggest that social justice has such far-reaching goals in redefining language, culture and law that there is very little room for anyone to move without transgression. Consider that, for instance, a Black person is only a Black person if they fully agree with and abide by every tenet of social justice, otherwise they become an unprotected white-adjacent lower-case ‘b’ black person who is scorned. Social justice loves only the people who fully surrender to it and it hates everyone else - even members of vulnerable groups that it claims to protect. This, I respectfully suggest, is not love at all.
It is difficult to see this when considering your own world view.
Imagine a proposed policy for SocialHub which said the following:
we do not welcome participation (however polite) by contributors to projects which are designed or primarily used for:
- disseminating ideas which oppose traditional and/or family values,
planning, encouragement of or inciting violence against conservative people.
- promoting leftist ideas or other authoritarian systems and practices.
- perpetuating, promoting, or enacting socialism or Marxism.
We reserve the right to exclude projects which tolerate such behaviours within their communities, or have not made a good faith effort to discourage such behaviours.
Would you be opposed to such a policy? Of course you would, and rightly so.
You might be opposed to it because you believe the ideas contained in it to be toxic. I suggest, however, that you should oppose any policy which enforces a single world view on every person. Even - and most especially - the world view that you personally hold to be true.
Enforcing any single world view on the Fediverse is the path to totalitarianism, not to the freedom that I believe we are seeking.
Thank you for reading my objection to this proposal. I am happy to answer any questions, concerns or objections that you have.