5 ms·

Mastodon is proof at least that federation doesn't fix the issue of censorship. There's a common ban list in Mastodon that if you don't include, you will not be

Mastodon is proof at least that federation doesn't fix the issue of censorship. There's a common ban list in Mastodon that if you don't include, you will not be able to join the "main" Mastodon cluster. And if your not part of the main group, what's even the point of federation? It's practically "servers" at that point.

throwaway33339 6y ago
It does fix the issue of censorship, in that 'blacklisted' instances can still have a world of their own and use the technology or protocol. No amount of technology is going to fix the 'a majority of people don't like you or interact with you' problem though.
polytely 6y ago
Well I'm really glad that that trusted circle of instances exists, I don't want anti-Semitism or racism in my timeline. So far octodon.social has been a step up from twitter for me, because it isn't designed to monetize outrage. The model where admins have to police their community or risk being de-federated with the mainstream means that an instance is limited to the scale they can effectively moderate, which is exactly where other social media platforms break for me.
- nzyat 6y ago
  So basically Mastodon is moderated in exactly the same way as Twitter, with the same set of rules. How is Mastodon more interesting than Twitter then?
  - kixiQu 6y ago
    the only way you can imagine something like Twitter being more interesting is more content Twitter prohibits? it's more interesting because the UX encourages different styles of posting (no QRTs for dunks, for one) that people are developing into slightly different social idioms. also no ads, chrono timeline, pick your own image crops...
M2Ys4U 6y ago
> Mastodon is proof at least that federation doesn't fix the issue of censorship. There's a common ban list in Mastodon that if you don't include, you will not be able to join the "main" Mastodon cluster. That's nonsense. I run my own instance and don't use any sort of ban list, and I can interact just fine with both the "main" instances, and a whole host of smaller, more niche, instances.
claudiawerner 6y ago
>There's a common ban list in Mastodon that if you don't include, you will not be able to join the "main" Mastodon cluster. I run my own instance. As far as I can tell, this is false. There are some ban lists floating around, though I'm yet to see a common, standard policy of blocking instances because they don't subscribe to a particular blocklist.

throwaway33339 6y ago

It does fix the issue of censorship, in that 'blacklisted' instances can still have a world of their own and use the technology or protocol. No amount of technology is going to fix the 'a majority of people don't like you or interact with you' problem though.

polytely 6y ago

Well I'm really glad that that trusted circle of instances exists, I don't want anti-Semitism or racism in my timeline. So far octodon.social has been a step up from twitter for me, because it isn't designed to monetize outrage. The model where admins have to police their community or risk being de-federated with the mainstream means that an instance is limited to the scale they can effectively moderate, which is exactly where other social media platforms break for me.

nzyat 6y ago
So basically Mastodon is moderated in exactly the same way as Twitter, with the same set of rules. How is Mastodon more interesting than Twitter then?
- kixiQu 6y ago
  the only way you can imagine something like Twitter being more interesting is more content Twitter prohibits? it's more interesting because the UX encourages different styles of posting (no QRTs for dunks, for one) that people are developing into slightly different social idioms. also no ads, chrono timeline, pick your own image crops...

M2Ys4U 6y ago

> Mastodon is proof at least that federation doesn't fix the issue of censorship. There's a common ban list in Mastodon that if you don't include, you will not be able to join the "main" Mastodon cluster. That's nonsense. I run my own instance and don't use any sort of ban list, and I can interact just fine with both the "main" instances, and a whole host of smaller, more niche, instances.

claudiawerner 6y ago

>There's a common ban list in Mastodon that if you don't include, you will not be able to join the "main" Mastodon cluster. I run my own instance. As far as I can tell, this is false. There are some ban lists floating around, though I'm yet to see a common, standard policy of blocking instances because they don't subscribe to a particular blocklist.