"The idea of empowering, democratic, relatively "low" tech that doesnt abuse its users has been expunged so effectively from the public consciousness (and tech

"The idea of empowering, democratic, relatively "low" tech that doesnt abuse its users has been expunged so effectively from the public consciousness (and tech journalism and others are so complicit) its not a mystery this new narrative doesnt fit" It isnt just that, its also the fact that the media's conversation around moderation is childishly underdeveloped and nuanced. Moderation IS the hard problem of social networks, you cant automate moderation away, you cant not have moderation but any moderation policy you choose is going to have edgecases and problematic instances and the distortions those cause are going to threaten to overwhelm the spirit of the moderation (which is, dont be a dick). Also, people stuck at those edgecases (someone talking about their experience as a victim of an illegal crime for example) are going to get banned or silenced in extremely harmful ways. The reason Mastodon is the future is that it attempts to solve this moderation problem by having many different communities with different moderation policies that have unique wordings, red lines for behavior and different moderators enforcing the established policies. When different communities federate, they do so on the basis of similar philosophies about moderation. When more and more communities with similar value systems federate the edgecases of any one particular moderation policy begin to become less important as a vulnerability or exploitation point since any one particular community is small and the shared spirit of the moderation policies ("dont be a dick) becomes more important as a guiding principle in moderation disputes. Also the red line of unnaceptable behavior is different for each community which creates a fuzzy region of more and more unacceptable behavior that trolls cant exploit the way they can tip toe justtt around the edge of a singular red line. No moderation system is sustainable since it will by definition have edgecases which will cause problems or be exploited by trolls. No moderation isn't an option. Mastodon/the Fediverse is the third option nobody knew we had and really I have NO idea how corporate social networks with monolithic moderation policies projected across millions of people have any capability of adapting this innovation. It is the massive elephant in the room for corporate social media companies and yet tech journalism is still stuck on "should we have no moderation or a single moderation policy?" which Mastodon is FAR past at this point onto more interesting questions like how do instance admins negotiate moderation disputes? What does that look like and how can it be improved? There have been disputes between predominantly black communities and predominantly white queer communities on the fediverse and it gets absurdly complicated and nuanced fast but there is the capacity for that conversation to happen and different people to make their own choices and part paths (defederate) that makes Mastodon undeniably a far more advanced social technology than any other corporate social media platform where it just becomes person A is right or person B is right.