The federated Mastodon, the one people generally are talking about, is controlled, by a 'democracy' of sorts of the server owners.
The technology itself is of course open, but if your content is not approved by the main Mastodon federation, then users will have to be signed into multiple Mastodon federations (if that's what they wish), one to see the main Mastodon federation, and one to see the one that got banned. Because of this extra hurdle, a ban from the main Mastodon federation does shut out a large portion of the Mastodon users.
Mastodon is often presented as this 'free speech social network', in reality it's just a decentralized social network, with all the censorship that comes with being a modern social network.
The definition of "free speech" many people in this thread use puzzles me greatly. If you come to my house and starts yelling things that offend me and I kick you out, I'm not infringing on your freedom of speech.
Based on what principles should server owners be forced to federate with third party servers if they don't want to? How is not wanting to federate with anybody "censorship"?
I've just setup a mastodon instance on a VPS to give it a try. For less than $5 per month you can have your own instance where you can invite like minded people and find people to federate with.
And if you can't find anybody to join you server or federate with you... Maybe you should think about what that says about you instead of screaming that you're being censored?
Main-instance Mastodon (run by the main dev) has made moderation choices that people disagree with. It means conversations here always brings out this same group group of people that disagreed with all these decisions and somehow believe their speech (their bytes) must physically be shipped to everyone else in some network, and must be examined by everyone on the network so that others can decide for themselves whether to listen. I've literally had conversations on the Fediverse where people expected and wanted blockchain-like replicas of their content onto everyone else's computer. And for everyone else to read it.
This group of people have shifted to this position because they no longer have the "de-platform/systemic-censorship" argument that arises when someone is banned from a centralized service, resulting in a total loss of access to the entire platform. Conversely, on the Fediverse they're still there but simply can't talk to some % of users. And that can easily be rectified by being a part of multiple communities and abiding by their rules.
I've tried to write about how ActivityPub (which Mastodon uses) is not a censorship-resistant network and that the point of Federation is to build lots of custom communities and have them politely talk to each other, or ignore the ones that violate community's expectations [0]. Feedback I literally got from here on HN was "I'm disappointed in you", when I think it's an accurate and realistic view. Especially when standing in the shadow of FreeNet.
The same liberty of free-speech and free-association that lets a far-left community thrive, and a far-right community thrive, also lets them block each other (which is a good thing -- it would be ugly otherwise).
the point of Federation is to build lots of custom communities and have them politely talk to each other, or ignore the ones that violate community's expectations
Vehement agreement from a Masto admin who works to keep her instance a nice quiet chill place for people like her, with some connections to other nice quiet chill parts of the Fediverse, if you want to argue then go to Twitter or go to a "free speech" instance - and accept that you will probably be cut off from the chill places unless you make a second account and abide by the chill rules.
> I've literally had conversations on the Fediverse where people expected and wanted blockchain-like replicas of their content onto everyone else's computer. And for everyone else to read it.
I honestly doubt that. Are you sure that you are not straw-manning them? In my experience they usually complain about how admins strip the ability to read their posts from the users registered in said instances.
I am 100% not straw manning them. I couldn't believe the conversation I was having. It's very few people that have this crazy of a hardline stance, but they're out there.
The main Mastodon federation has a list of servers you must ban on your end to join the federation. So even if you only disagree with a subsection of them, if you want your server to be in the popular federation, you have to ban the entire list.
>If you come to my house and starts yelling things that offend me and I kick you out, I'm not infringing on your freedom of speech.
It'd be more like be your neighbor being offended and therefore kicking out the person yelling things that offends him. If you don't want to be kicked out of the apartment complex, you are required to share the same views as everyone else.
The technology itself is of course open, but if your content is not approved by the main Mastodon federation, then users will have to be signed into multiple Mastodon federations (if that's what they wish), one to see the main Mastodon federation, and one to see the one that got banned. Because of this extra hurdle, a ban from the main Mastodon federation does shut out a large portion of the Mastodon users.
Mastodon is often presented as this 'free speech social network', in reality it's just a decentralized social network, with all the censorship that comes with being a modern social network.