[the_third_wave]

Those decisions should not be taken at server level but at the level of the user. The way Mastodon is organised it is up to the server administrator to decide whether you get to interact with users on other servers. If the administrator has a bee up his bonnet on some specific subject he'll block any server which doesn't fit his idea of wrong and right with regard to that subject. This quickly leads to islands of server-groups which do not communicate with each other and as such increases the polarisation of the (small-n) netscape. Those on the "progressive" island won't hear much from the "conservative" island and vice-versa.

I've seen several comparisons between Mastodon and email servers where server administrators also have the power to block communication with other servers but those comparisons do not hold since I have yet to find a mail server administrator who blocks communication with certain other servers on ideological grounds. Mail servers are blocked because they are sources of spam, not because they host users with different opinions. Mail content itself is not moderated other than through spam filters which (for now?) do not censor on ideological grounds, "Tweets" and "Toots" are.

A better solution would be to have users select their own moderators just like they can choose their own content filtering (e.g. uBlock Origin) rule sets but I do not see how something like that can be implemented given the way Mastodon works.

[rolenthedeep]

You're looking at this from the wrong angle.

You do have control here. You do select your moderator, and you do have the power to change that.

You select which server your account lives on. If you disagree with the admin at such a fundamental level, this is probably not the right server for you. You can simply select another server.

You also have the option to run your own server. It's not hard to handle just a few accounts, and there's even places you can pay to host and configure it for you. I know several people running their own servers, and a few of them just have one account.

Let's compare to Tumblr for a second. They've had a wild ride with content moderation over the years, and this has led many people to leave the platform. Those people lost their accounts and their followers forever with no recourse. If your mastodon moderator starts getting scared by nipples, you can simply migrate to a new server and keep all your followers.

The real trick about mastodon is that you can take full control if you really want to. However, most of us don't want to deal with running a server, so you just have to trust someone else to do it. If you find a community that matches your interests, it's actually a very pleasant place to be

[the_third_wave]

What happens with you "followers" when you change servers? Do they follow along automagically or do they have to undertake action to re-connect to @[e-mail]?

As to running your own server - something I have been looking in to because I support the decentralisation of the 'net - I am under the impression that Pleroma is a lot easier on the hardware than Mastodon. Does you concur?

[rolenthedeep]

Anyone following your old account will automatically follow the new account. The only thing that does not transfer is your post history, for mostly technical reasons.

I don't know anything about pleroma, sorry. I do know that mastodon uses a ton of resources when you get a lot of users, but for <5 you can use anything including a raspberry pi

[phpisthebest]

This will not happen is the Admin of the server you are one chooses to block the server you want to move to....

Mastodon has long become a political project ever sense their very public dispute with Gab... They ceased to be a neutral project and clearly showed the limitations of the federation space when it comes to putting users in control, as that control is largely symbolic and just like centralized system unless you run your own server, and you do not run afoul of the project dev team so you do not get put on a default deny list then you are not in control of your data

[rolenthedeep]

You're complaining that you can't migrate your account to a Nazi server.

This sounds like a feature, not a bug.

[the_third_wave]

No, it sounds like censorship. Apart from the fact that Gab is not a "Nazi server" just like your average Mastodon server is not a "Communist server" even though there may be some neo-Nazis on the former and are sure to be a number of communists on the latter it sounds like a petty action by the project maintainers if certain servers are blocked by default.

It sounds like a form of digital McCarthyism.

I'll have a look at the Pleroma source to see if they also engage in this type of ideological censorship. If not it sounds like Pleroma is the better alternative, being both lighter as well as (hopefully) free from censorship.

[phpisthebest]

ahh yes, everyone you disagree with is a Nazi......

I figured that tired, worn out, dead horse would be dead now but I guess not