[cmrdporcupine]

It's already heavily federated so it wouldn't be a binary split like you describe.

Like, it wouldn't be "one federation with Musk types" vs "another with heavy moderation" but actually already a whole bunch of nodes with different types of moderation choosing to isolate away the Musk node. Or not. It would be up to each node.

Note that "Gab" and "Truth Social" are both built on Mastodon. But they're isolated from the rest of the federated nodes.

[RobotToaster]

IIRC both Gab and TS disabled federation, so that isn't a good indicator either way.

It is, IMO a good indicator that neither actually care about free speech, since they are basically "censoring" the rest of the fediverse.

[leereeves]

How does "it would be up to each node" work?

Suppose there are three servers (A, B, C), and A is federated with both, but B isn't federated with C, and there's conversation between people on A and B.

Do people on C only see the A side of the conversation?

[cmrdporcupine]

I am not fully clear on how threads are handled, but, yes, in principle visibility of users and posts is based on who they choose to federate with. So C would not see any content that originated out of B. Which AFAIK includes replies, etc.

I'm a Mastodon newb and not an expert, I'm sure someone else more informed could give a better explanation of the subtleties.

[LuisAPI]

No.

Server A also sends messages coming from servers it federates with, so those on server C can see server B's messages, but C'ers just can't reply to them and expect B'ers to actually receive those messages.

[leereeves]

> C'ers just can't reply to them and expect B'ers to actually receive those messages.

Wouldn't A also forward those replies to B?