So I’ve learned that my account has been limited on the Mastodon flagship instance mastodon.social. I have a vague idea as of why, I’m not always polite with people spreading misinformation, but this post isn’t really about that.
Normally I wouldn’t mind the moderation actions other servers take against me, but this particular instance reminded how much of the #ActivityPub space mastodon.social alone takes.
Even if you don’t know or care about their moderation policies, your potential network of ActivityPub contacts can be severely curtailed, without recourse, by the moderation team of a single server in a supposedly decentralized network.
Ideally, this server should be broken down into smaller ones, anti-trust style, but as the biggest server in the network they also get to ignore such a plea, which to me gives credence to the servers choosing to proactively defederate from mastodon.social, regardless of any other motivation: why wait until the ban hammer eventually falls and generates confused support requests for your own moderation team?
Might as well preemptively cut the cord explicitly with the actual pachyderm in the ActivityPub room, which better sets expectations for local users.
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Piero Bosio
•@Hypolite Petovan
I'm increasingly convinced that everyone should create their own private instance or, at least, maintain multiple accounts on multiple instances.
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Hypolite Petovan
•@Piero Bosio While I’m hosting my own instance, I do not believe everybody should do the same. To do this, I’m using knowledge I acquired through my professional career. This knowledge can be acquired by other means, but at a much greater personal cost (time, money, data loss along the way).
In the same way no man is an island, I believe a decentralized network can’t be just of individuals in order to be widespread. Otherwise you risk ending up with a network of IT professionals and hobbyists, with nothing in between.
Multiple accounts on multiple instances on the other hand is a healthy recommendation. More clients are able to handle multiple accounts than ever before, so it is less a hassle that it used to be when Mastodon exploded in popularity.
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