[CM30]

So, like when using most websites? If you use Hacker News you're trusting Dang and the other folks running this place. If you use Facebook or Twitter, you're trusting Zuck, Elon and the folks working at Meta or Twitter. If you use independently run forums and community sites, you're trusting the people running those places.

Self hosting your own instance is great when possible (and I definitely think it should be possible for almost all services, at least in an ideal world), but you won't be able to do much in life without trusting at least someone along the way.

[irusensei]

Let’s say you are a journalist or wathever today profession that depends on reaching people. After the twitter fallout you went to this new journalist centric instance and managed to recover a good following. Months later and you had a bad intercalating with the server admin which ended up not being a level headed person as you previously thought. He deletes your account… not even a chance to use the migration tools to redirect profile.

[mariusor]

Some of these hypotheticals are a becoming a little ridiculous. There's very little recourse if twitter bans you, or youtube bans you and you're not capable of raising a stink on HN, or what not. It's hardly any different when you're using a mastodon instance.

[irusensei]

Twitter won’t ban you for personal reasons. Can you vouch the same for a server admin?

[CM30]

I'm pretty sure they'll ban you if it's 'inconvenient' not to, like if a company raises potential legal hell, your posts get mass reported, you end up in the midst of a huge internet controversy/witchhunt, etc.

A large company is no more immune to that than a small one, or a community run site would be.

And at least with an individual or small company/group, you have someone to put your case to in that situation. Someone who can probably offer support and potentially lift the ban rather than the 'Get fucked' attitude of Facebook, Google, etc.

[fragmede]

I assure you, individuals, especially ones with the tiniest bit of power, as just as capable of telling you to "get fucked". Some of them work at Twitter or Facebook. Others run your HOA or are university professors. Or Mastodon servers.

The server admin can kick you off just because they feel like it. At least with a large public platform there's the possibility of public exposure of bad behavior.

[mariusor]

Tell that to Kathy Griffin and Jeph Jaques. And even before that, I doubt that people getting banned were considering it as "not personal".

[irusensei]

Did twitter TOS was ever ok with impersonating accounts?

I don’t want to be in a position where I’m defending twitter but need to remind federated instances are run mostly by normal people. Having the cake and eating it and all that.

[mariusor]

I think it's not difficult to find instances ran by ethical people or ethical organizations on the fediverse. Throwing the baby with the bath water because you theoretically can stumble upon bad admins, is in the realm of a "ridiculous hypothetical" to me.

[toofy]

i think in many cases users are closer--node wise and influence wise--to their server admins than they were to twitter's moderation team. always? of course not. but, if this is a major concern for you, then its easy to either start your own server with a group of people or even spin up on your own. this was not possible under twitter.

[amadeuspagel]

> If you use Hacker News you're trusting Dang and the other folks running this place.

I don't direct people to my HN profile. I don't rely on that for identity. I don't try to build an audience on HN.

> If you use Facebook or Twitter, you're trusting Zuck, Elon and the folks working at Meta or Twitter.

These are ad-funded businesses, they have a financial incentive not to ban everyone they dislike. They also have a track record.

[emaro]

It's a common thing in the Fediverse that controversial moderation actions are discussed criticaly. People who don't like it then move onto another server. That's a feature.

If I host a personal instance, it's good that I can ban anyone I want. If you host a public instance, you probably will try to enforce your rules somewhat consistently, else it's gonna be hard to earn the trust of your users.

[fsflover]

> They also have a track record

Indeed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31782952