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Makes sense. But how can a user validate a mastodon instance is not malicious?

• rainbowmverse 9y ago
  Reputation! And I don't mean some convoluted algorithmic scoring system. Most people seem to find out about Mastodon from someone, and that someone suggests the instance they're on. That's why a lot of artists end up on Mastodon.art, for example. So far, the admin has a good reputation for being consistent about updates and keeping the community engaged. People keep trying to find some technological heuristic to establish trust, like requiring legal names or some kind of scoring system. So far, it's even worse because people encode all their cognitive biases into it and none of the mental models or processes people develop for checking those biases.
  • partycoder 9y ago
    An instance could have good reputation and still be malicious in terms of privacy and what is done with your data. In this sense, trusting a Mastodon instance with your data is the same as trusting a Bitcoin exchange with your money. Bitcoin is decentralized too, that doesn't make Bitcoin exchanges trustworthy.
    • AsyncAwait 9y ago
      In the end you have to trust somebody. If you can't trust your instance admin, you can run your own, (even single-user),instance, however that still doesn't protect you from your host provider being malicious etc.