The same mechanisms that dampen virality also make both intentional misinformation and unintentional spreading of false rumors just about impossible to squash here.
I first really noticed it when fedi networks widely distributed the baseless assertion that a tech exec a lot of people (correctly imo) dislike is a known sexual harasser.
It's a real problem that is exacting a price right now, today, via swarms of abusive sent toward fedi admins and developers for things they didn't even do.
If the next few months here look anything like the past few days, I would be shocked not to see a substantial exodus of good people, both devs/mods and regular users who follow admin conversations.
@kissane The masses yearn for some hypothetical third thing that sits between “complete ignorance of how our vital systems work and fail” and “irreversibly subscribed to the flamewar mailing list for every tool you use”.
@vruba @kissane First past the mast