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Mastodon has also banned Gab and others from the network that they disagree with. The whole point of a federated system is free speech... yet they have spent a

Mastodon has also banned Gab and others from the network that they disagree with. The whole point of a federated system is free speech... yet they have spent a lot of time trying to kick out people who disagree with them. Frankly, it’s disheartening I want to know what the communists, fascists, republicans, democrats, racists, religious, technocrats, etc want to say. It’s so frustrating having everyone in bubbles and getting banned for speaking about topics. The most calls for hate and violence I’ve seen are on Twitter and not from the right lol...

EdwardDiego 5y ago
Welcome to humanity and our inherent tribalism.
h2odragon 5y ago
I also found it deeply amusing that the "fediverse" proclaimed its diversity with "look at all the banned nodes!" I peeked at the Mastodon code and it gave me a headache before I got through the "required for installation" section. Makes me want to go set up an RBBS node again.
- cyber_kinetist 5y ago
  The fediverse was not about diversity in the first place, its main purpose is to decentralize power from one platform owner to various instances with their own rules. Since each instance can have their own whitelists/blacklists for other instances, there can be less diversity of what people you meet, but people have their own preferences. If you want a platform where people from all political sides come together (and fight via quote tweets and ratios), then Twitter is your best bet. But not everyone wants to have that experience, and I’ve seen people move to Mastodon to escape from that and have a more curated, closely-knit experience.
kypro 5y ago
It really never ceases to amaze me how few people actually seem to value freedom of speech. Almost everyone claims to until someone says something they disagree with. I guess I'm not sure the problem is technological any more. If public sentiment towards freedom of speech doesn't change it doesn't really matter if a truly free platform exists or not. If 99% of people don't want freedom of speech then these platforms will inevitably become radicalised cesspools only used by the 1% who have opinions which they can't express elsewhere. Subsequently if these platforms become popular enough they'll inevitably be censored in one way or another by the 99% who disapprove. I'm with you, I like to know what the radicals are saying. I actually find a lot of the mainstream arguments against radical belief systems to be very poor and this actually re-enforces the beliefs these communities hold. I personally believe if we tried to understand some of the grievances these people have and then tried to actually provide solutions to their problems we wouldn't see half as much radicalisation. Instead we try to silence and shame these individuals then dismiss their grievances with stupid arguments which only demonstrate to them that we have no understanding or interest in their problems. It's really no surprise that radical online communities seem to be growing with censorship. No one changes their beliefs because someone censors and shames them.

EdwardDiego 5y ago

Welcome to humanity and our inherent tribalism.

h2odragon 5y ago

I also found it deeply amusing that the "fediverse" proclaimed its diversity with "look at all the banned nodes!" I peeked at the Mastodon code and it gave me a headache before I got through the "required for installation" section. Makes me want to go set up an RBBS node again.

cyber_kinetist 5y ago
The fediverse was not about diversity in the first place, its main purpose is to decentralize power from one platform owner to various instances with their own rules. Since each instance can have their own whitelists/blacklists for other instances, there can be less diversity of what people you meet, but people have their own preferences. If you want a platform where people from all political sides come together (and fight via quote tweets and ratios), then Twitter is your best bet. But not everyone wants to have that experience, and I’ve seen people move to Mastodon to escape from that and have a more curated, closely-knit experience.

kypro 5y ago

It really never ceases to amaze me how few people actually seem to value freedom of speech. Almost everyone claims to until someone says something they disagree with. I guess I'm not sure the problem is technological any more. If public sentiment towards freedom of speech doesn't change it doesn't really matter if a truly free platform exists or not. If 99% of people don't want freedom of speech then these platforms will inevitably become radicalised cesspools only used by the 1% who have opinions which they can't express elsewhere. Subsequently if these platforms become popular enough they'll inevitably be censored in one way or another by the 99% who disapprove. I'm with you, I like to know what the radicals are saying. I actually find a lot of the mainstream arguments against radical belief systems to be very poor and this actually re-enforces the beliefs these communities hold. I personally believe if we tried to understand some of the grievances these people have and then tried to actually provide solutions to their problems we wouldn't see half as much radicalisation. Instead we try to silence and shame these individuals then dismiss their grievances with stupid arguments which only demonstrate to them that we have no understanding or interest in their problems. It's really no surprise that radical online communities seem to be growing with censorship. No one changes their beliefs because someone censors and shames them.