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But Mastodon instances do tell you what is going on. They provide lists of the other instances they have banned from their own, with a statement on why. Here's

But Mastodon instances do tell you what is going on. They provide lists of the other instances they have banned from their own, with a statement on why. Here's the one I'm on right now: https://mstdn.social/about https://mstdn.social/about (scroll to the bottom and expand the "Moderated servers" section). Centralized social media platforms also control everything you see, to the point that it can be very difficult to see the full range of posts from accounts in good standing that you follow within their platform, in favor of posts they think would keep you more "engaged". And they are famously opaque on how they do that. If you can guess at what they've done and decide you don't like it, you don't have any recourse. After you've spent time to build a network of people you follow and follow you, they have you locked into their platform, holding your subscriptions hostage against you. I guess I don't understand what you want. Twitter is too much censorship, right? But we don't know how Twitter censors content, and even if we did, what would you do about it? Mastodon instances censor content, yeah. Why not? It's a person running their own site, they can let whatever they want through it. But they tell you how, when, and why they censor. And if you don't like it, you don't have to put up with it.

eduction 4y ago
> scroll to the bottom and expand the "Moderated servers" section Wow. As much as I disliked Twitter deciding who I can and can’t follow (via bans), and what people can and can’t say, at least they put some rigor into it. I don’t think I’d ever want some self anointed little server god king banning so many peers for such soft reasons. I thought it would be csam, armed groups - this has reasons like “Trump fanbase”, “offensive content”, and over and over again “a-holes”. No thanks.
- emaro 4y ago
  There are plenty of instances who just block content that's illegal in their country. So you just could choose one of these.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  Everyone wants to return to the old internet. The old internet was run by self appointed gods who created little fiefdoms. Some form of censorship could happen similiar to reddit groups.
  - heavyset_go 4y ago
    Who knew that we had it so good back when the appointed God-king of your favorite PhpBB forum was some 16 year old Livejournal user?
  - DocTomoe 4y ago
    To come back to my NNTP example: Back in the day, servers were not banned by admins, individual users were killfiled (essentially a filter) by other individual users, meaning that if you really disliked someone, you would get rid of their output - without denying anyone else access to their musings, related to the topic at hand or anywhere else. It was a more civilized time. Today, server admins ban other servers for random issues. Users do not use the built-in killfile-esque blocking method, but instead go and complain to server admins (who then are incentivized to use massive action against other servers). This obviously is not an environment that will lead to societal harmony.
- ltriant 4y ago
  Great! This server isn't for you then. Find another one.
  - lokedhs 4y ago
    There are plenty of instances who makes it a selling point that they don't block anything. If the have free speech in their name, you can assume that's the case. The end result however is what you'd expect and the experience on those instances are very different from what you see on the more mainstream ones, and most people wouldn't like it.
    - DocTomoe 4y ago
      Also, there are instances who deliberately block such servers, because in some circles, human rights like free speech are somehow considered evil.
      - wizzwizz4 4y ago
        A few do. Mostly, though, those servers are blocked because of continued harassment from their users. https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/ comes to mind. Some of the "free speech", "low-moderation" instances have self-policing communities. Others are full of neo-nazis. Yet others are run by bigots and ban anyone who objects to the hate and vitriol. They are not all the same.
        DocTomoe 4y ago
        That was the comic that made me lose respect for Mr. Munroe, because he is too intelligent to miss the point so badly: Free Speech is an age-of-enlightenment concept, not a legal construct from the US constitution. Worse, while it is true that no-one HAS to listen, actively preventing OTHERS from listening is obviously ethically wrong. If you feel harassed by an user, filter that user. If you feel harassed by every single account on an instance, filter that instance for yourself (this option currently does not seem to exist in Mastodon). But do not go crying to our admin and deny me, who happens to be on the same server as you and is semi-ok with some of the folks on that other server the ability to interact with them. This is creating filter bubbles, your users will at first love the friendlyness and fluff, but it also is exactly what led to the right-wing successes we've seen all over the world in the last few years. Filter bubbles destroy democratic societies. > Yet others are run by bigots and ban anyone who objects to the hate and vitriol. You see the dangers of giving admins that level of control? Now you got an instance in which there are no more discussions, only self-assuring and groupthink, and which will slowly become more radicalised. If filtering was strictly an user's issue, other users may have seen the objection to hate and vitriol (which often starts underhanded), and have had another view. By the way, that is true no matter which political fringe a server admin belongs to: I know a Mastodon instance on which some users become increasingly radicalised against car owners right now, to the point where mass executions are being normalised by joking about them. Guess what happens when you try to become a voice for reason... But are ALL of them just evil, unredeemable beings that need to be banned from talking? Should my Mastodon admin block that instance for spreading hate and vitriol, even though the majority still talks about other things? Obviously, that's a silly idea.

eduction 4y ago

> scroll to the bottom and expand the "Moderated servers" section Wow. As much as I disliked Twitter deciding who I can and can’t follow (via bans), and what people can and can’t say, at least they put some rigor into it. I don’t think I’d ever want some self anointed little server god king banning so many peers for such soft reasons. I thought it would be csam, armed groups - this has reasons like “Trump fanbase”, “offensive content”, and over and over again “a-holes”. No thanks.

emaro 4y ago
There are plenty of instances who just block content that's illegal in their country. So you just could choose one of these.
ipaddr 4y ago
Everyone wants to return to the old internet. The old internet was run by self appointed gods who created little fiefdoms. Some form of censorship could happen similiar to reddit groups.
- heavyset_go 4y ago
  Who knew that we had it so good back when the appointed God-king of your favorite PhpBB forum was some 16 year old Livejournal user?
- DocTomoe 4y ago
  To come back to my NNTP example: Back in the day, servers were not banned by admins, individual users were killfiled (essentially a filter) by other individual users, meaning that if you really disliked someone, you would get rid of their output - without denying anyone else access to their musings, related to the topic at hand or anywhere else. It was a more civilized time. Today, server admins ban other servers for random issues. Users do not use the built-in killfile-esque blocking method, but instead go and complain to server admins (who then are incentivized to use massive action against other servers). This obviously is not an environment that will lead to societal harmony.
ltriant 4y ago
Great! This server isn't for you then. Find another one.
- lokedhs 4y ago
  There are plenty of instances who makes it a selling point that they don't block anything. If the have free speech in their name, you can assume that's the case. The end result however is what you'd expect and the experience on those instances are very different from what you see on the more mainstream ones, and most people wouldn't like it.
  - DocTomoe 4y ago
    Also, there are instances who deliberately block such servers, because in some circles, human rights like free speech are somehow considered evil.
    - wizzwizz4 4y ago
      A few do. Mostly, though, those servers are blocked because of continued harassment from their users. https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/ comes to mind. Some of the "free speech", "low-moderation" instances have self-policing communities. Others are full of neo-nazis. Yet others are run by bigots and ban anyone who objects to the hate and vitriol. They are not all the same.
      - DocTomoe 4y ago
        That was the comic that made me lose respect for Mr. Munroe, because he is too intelligent to miss the point so badly: Free Speech is an age-of-enlightenment concept, not a legal construct from the US constitution. Worse, while it is true that no-one HAS to listen, actively preventing OTHERS from listening is obviously ethically wrong. If you feel harassed by an user, filter that user. If you feel harassed by every single account on an instance, filter that instance for yourself (this option currently does not seem to exist in Mastodon). But do not go crying to our admin and deny me, who happens to be on the same server as you and is semi-ok with some of the folks on that other server the ability to interact with them. This is creating filter bubbles, your users will at first love the friendlyness and fluff, but it also is exactly what led to the right-wing successes we've seen all over the world in the last few years. Filter bubbles destroy democratic societies. > Yet others are run by bigots and ban anyone who objects to the hate and vitriol. You see the dangers of giving admins that level of control? Now you got an instance in which there are no more discussions, only self-assuring and groupthink, and which will slowly become more radicalised. If filtering was strictly an user's issue, other users may have seen the objection to hate and vitriol (which often starts underhanded), and have had another view. By the way, that is true no matter which political fringe a server admin belongs to: I know a Mastodon instance on which some users become increasingly radicalised against car owners right now, to the point where mass executions are being normalised by joking about them. Guess what happens when you try to become a voice for reason... But are ALL of them just evil, unredeemable beings that need to be banned from talking? Should my Mastodon admin block that instance for spreading hate and vitriol, even though the majority still talks about other things? Obviously, that's a silly idea.