Discussing Mastodon is hardly "forced" when the overall topic is a new decentralized alternative to Twitter, since Mastodon is a decentralized alternative to Twitter that's been around for a while.
It seems unlikely that this is astroturf given that the person who posted it has been on HN for over a decade (though admittedly not super-active) and their comments are on a wide range of topics and not just Twitter or Mastodon.
Musk's idea is to piss off 10% of the left and right of the spectrum and keep the middle 80% happy.
The left 10% will hang out on Mastodon or Fediverse, the right 10% will go on Gab or whatever. I think what's happenning is great for all. You do you™.
Gab is a Mastodon fork that's basically locked out of the Mastodon Fediverse by the moderators. There's no reason why Mastodon qua infrastructure should be identified with the "right".
Discussing Mastodon is hardly "forced" when the overall topic is a new decentralized alternative to Twitter, since Mastodon is a decentralized alternative to Twitter that's been around for a while.
It seems unlikely that this is astroturf given that the person who posted it has been on HN for over a decade (though admittedly not super-active) and their comments are on a wide range of topics and not just Twitter or Mastodon.