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>Anyone has numerous servers to choose from that will let them say whatever they want, but other people have the choice to go to servers which don't federate wi

>Anyone has numerous servers to choose from that will let them say whatever they want, but other people have the choice to go to servers which don't federate with the other one. And then people who are unhappy with the mere existence of other servers hosting speech they dislike will launch coordinated attacks on the upstream infrastructure and revenue streams of those servers, as we've seen time and time and time again. And of course this will just be justified as giant corporations merely engaging in their free expression by ensuring that certain narratives cannot be easily communicated between willing parties via a digital medium.

kstrauser 4y ago
That’s a strange take. If another server hosts content I, as a Mastodon admin, dislike, then I can simply choose not to talk to them. I do not owe them a platform. I’m not preventing my users from creating a second account on that server so that they can interact with it. That server has perfect freedom to host whatever they see fit, and I have perfect freedom not to see it. And if I’m too quick to block servers, my users will leave for less restrictive alternatives. Same if I’m too slow to block bad actors: people being harassed by users on those servers will leave for somewhere more moderated. In short, there’s a feedback loop that tends to optimize a community’s moderation to follow that community’s preferences. What more could you possibly ask for?
- yanderekko 4y ago
  I'm not saying that it's a Mastadon technology problem. I'm saying it's a social problem, that the "federation model" only truly works down to the layer of the tech stack which is not federated, which is still most layers. Activists will not be content to merely defederate, they will coordinate to have disfavored Mastadon instances brought down by their hosts and funders.
  - Zak 4y ago
    You could replace "Mastodon instances" with "websites" and see the same effect. Several sites used by hate groups and similar have gone offline indefinitely after Cloudflare refused to provide them DDoS protection.
    - yanderekko 4y ago
      Yes, that's what I have in mind. It's unclear if just having the various sides of the culture war creating their own social networks is actually a stable equilibrium.
      - Zak 4y ago
        Having a culture war probably isn't a stable equilibrium.

kstrauser 4y ago

That’s a strange take. If another server hosts content I, as a Mastodon admin, dislike, then I can simply choose not to talk to them. I do not owe them a platform. I’m not preventing my users from creating a second account on that server so that they can interact with it. That server has perfect freedom to host whatever they see fit, and I have perfect freedom not to see it. And if I’m too quick to block servers, my users will leave for less restrictive alternatives. Same if I’m too slow to block bad actors: people being harassed by users on those servers will leave for somewhere more moderated. In short, there’s a feedback loop that tends to optimize a community’s moderation to follow that community’s preferences. What more could you possibly ask for?

yanderekko 4y ago
I'm not saying that it's a Mastadon technology problem. I'm saying it's a social problem, that the "federation model" only truly works down to the layer of the tech stack which is not federated, which is still most layers. Activists will not be content to merely defederate, they will coordinate to have disfavored Mastadon instances brought down by their hosts and funders.
- Zak 4y ago
  You could replace "Mastodon instances" with "websites" and see the same effect. Several sites used by hate groups and similar have gone offline indefinitely after Cloudflare refused to provide them DDoS protection.
  - yanderekko 4y ago
    Yes, that's what I have in mind. It's unclear if just having the various sides of the culture war creating their own social networks is actually a stable equilibrium.
    - Zak 4y ago
      Having a culture war probably isn't a stable equilibrium.