3 ms·

Because it's their server? Why do I get a say in who I invite to dinner at my house?

by tedunangst 3y ago

MForster 3y ago
I think that's the wrong analogy. It's more: Why does a landlord not get a say in who their tenants invite to dinner?
- blowski 3y ago
  Housing is a scarce commodity, so we have rules about how it’s allocated. Mastodon servers have no such scarcity - if you don’t like the rules on a server, set up your own.
- tedunangst 3y ago
  Because their tenants are free loaders? If you're paying for the service, I'd expect a greater degree of autonomy. Unless the service you're paying for is for somebody else to make moderation and federation decisions for you.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  I think that tedunangst's analogy was more appropriate, personally.
Dalewyn 3y ago
Because the whole shitstorm is rooted in Musk managing Twitter as he sees fit, and those who left claimed to akshuarry exercise and defend free speech and tolerance?
- vidarh 3y ago
  You're assuming those who have left share a uniform ideology. Many who left wanted far stricter moderation than Musk. Some wanted less. Some wanted more tolerance, some wanted less. There's also a vast difference in moderation of a single centralised system and a network of thousands of instances - you can be opposed to the moderation policies of a centralised network and still think it's fine for those policies to exist somewhere as long as you don't need to deal with them.
- sureglymop 3y ago
  I just want to remind you that Mastodon has existed for about a decade, way longer than any of the Twitter stuff has been going on. Culturally it is the same as it always has been. Why would I as a server administrator have to change because new people are interested in our platform? If you join my server and don't like the experience, feel free to move to a different server or to start your own.
echelon 3y ago
Mastodon instance operators are electing not to federate with other instances that federate with third party instances they dislike. They're holding other parties and parts of the ecosystem hostage over their own ideologies. A good analogy is that some instance operators are acting like the Reddit moderators that ban users with post histories in communities they dislike. This is why p2p is superior to federation. Unless there's a law being broken, nobody should have control over what you see or who you talk to. Your attention and interests belong to you.
- vidarh 3y ago
  Nobody forces you to use those instances with policies on defederation you don't like. You can run a single person instance if you so choose (I do) and ignore most of the drama. Meanwhile people are also free to choose to give some degree of control to instance admins because a lot of people want a nice walled garden but don't want to be forced to tend to the walls.
  - echelon 3y ago
    > Nobody forces you to use those instances with policies on defederation you don't like. If you don't want to be all alone, you shouldn't have to opt in to becoming a part of the hivemind. You can be contrarian or a minority or whatever without presenting a threat to the larger group. You don't have to agree in order to coexist meaningfully and peacefully. Companies censor because it benefits the bottom line. Reddit moderators and the Fediverse have no excuse except perhaps that being lazy and aggressive with bans is the easiest policy to implement. Surely I hope that's the rationale and that it's not simply one of enjoying power over others. Where are the censorship police in public parks and libraries, asking people to leave? These spaces are perfectly fine and nobody is being harmed in them. There's no reason our internet deserves special padded walls, memory holes, and horse blinders. Remember that just twenty years ago, democrats and liberals were the protectors of free speech. The pendulum swung to the right (and it'll probably swing back left again). Keep communication lanes open and be civil. If you want to block someone, do it yourself and don't make a big public deal over it. It's not good to win points by building platform- and infrastructure-level censorship tools. That's why this is so upsetting. Tools that "protect everyone" today might be turned against everyone tomorrow. The more chances for people that disagree and don't see eye to interact non-confrontationally, the better. Banning and score keeping are not the way.

Because it's their server? Why do I get a say in who I invite to dinner at my house?

MForster 3y ago

I think that's the wrong analogy. It's more: Why does a landlord not get a say in who their tenants invite to dinner?

blowski 3y ago
Housing is a scarce commodity, so we have rules about how it’s allocated. Mastodon servers have no such scarcity - if you don’t like the rules on a server, set up your own.
tedunangst 3y ago
Because their tenants are free loaders? If you're paying for the service, I'd expect a greater degree of autonomy. Unless the service you're paying for is for somebody else to make moderation and federation decisions for you.
JohnFen 3y ago
I think that tedunangst's analogy was more appropriate, personally.

Dalewyn 3y ago

Because the whole shitstorm is rooted in Musk managing Twitter as he sees fit, and those who left claimed to akshuarry exercise and defend free speech and tolerance?

vidarh 3y ago
You're assuming those who have left share a uniform ideology. Many who left wanted far stricter moderation than Musk. Some wanted less. Some wanted more tolerance, some wanted less. There's also a vast difference in moderation of a single centralised system and a network of thousands of instances - you can be opposed to the moderation policies of a centralised network and still think it's fine for those policies to exist somewhere as long as you don't need to deal with them.
sureglymop 3y ago
I just want to remind you that Mastodon has existed for about a decade, way longer than any of the Twitter stuff has been going on. Culturally it is the same as it always has been. Why would I as a server administrator have to change because new people are interested in our platform? If you join my server and don't like the experience, feel free to move to a different server or to start your own.

echelon 3y ago

Mastodon instance operators are electing not to federate with other instances that federate with third party instances they dislike. They're holding other parties and parts of the ecosystem hostage over their own ideologies. A good analogy is that some instance operators are acting like the Reddit moderators that ban users with post histories in communities they dislike. This is why p2p is superior to federation. Unless there's a law being broken, nobody should have control over what you see or who you talk to. Your attention and interests belong to you.

vidarh 3y ago
Nobody forces you to use those instances with policies on defederation you don't like. You can run a single person instance if you so choose (I do) and ignore most of the drama. Meanwhile people are also free to choose to give some degree of control to instance admins because a lot of people want a nice walled garden but don't want to be forced to tend to the walls.
- echelon 3y ago
  > Nobody forces you to use those instances with policies on defederation you don't like. If you don't want to be all alone, you shouldn't have to opt in to becoming a part of the hivemind. You can be contrarian or a minority or whatever without presenting a threat to the larger group. You don't have to agree in order to coexist meaningfully and peacefully. Companies censor because it benefits the bottom line. Reddit moderators and the Fediverse have no excuse except perhaps that being lazy and aggressive with bans is the easiest policy to implement. Surely I hope that's the rationale and that it's not simply one of enjoying power over others. Where are the censorship police in public parks and libraries, asking people to leave? These spaces are perfectly fine and nobody is being harmed in them. There's no reason our internet deserves special padded walls, memory holes, and horse blinders. Remember that just twenty years ago, democrats and liberals were the protectors of free speech. The pendulum swung to the right (and it'll probably swing back left again). Keep communication lanes open and be civil. If you want to block someone, do it yourself and don't make a big public deal over it. It's not good to win points by building platform- and infrastructure-level censorship tools. That's why this is so upsetting. Tools that "protect everyone" today might be turned against everyone tomorrow. The more chances for people that disagree and don't see eye to interact non-confrontationally, the better. Banning and score keeping are not the way.