[echelon]

> I can't understand the toxicity of mind that makes people think it's OK to impose others view their own, unwanted points of view.

You're using words like toxic to describe me and you don't even know me. This goes to show the incredibly rotten and highly polarized the status quo has become. Systems that behave the way you're describing are the current norm, and they're broken.

You can choose for yourself to ignore me. You can advertise to the world that you ignore me and people can opt into that if they choose. But you shouldn't ever have the right to unilaterally make that call for everyone. Nobody should have that power.

Imagine if [opposite viewpoint] could technologically shut you down for everyone else? The systems we design today could enable that tomorrow. Just because you're in a comfortable spot today doesn't mean that eroding rights and freedoms won't ensnare you tomorrow or that the zeitgeist won't change.

> If you're not welcome in a community

This is also frankly a disturbing trend. Creating little fiefdoms of unacceptance. Who makes you the judge of that? You don't even know what my views and values are, and you're seeking to shun me already.

We're all the same. We just sample the world differently. We all need to be more accepting and loving and stop playing petty team sports.

In the meantime, you're free to keep on tooting. Nobody is taking Mastodon away from you. It's just not a system I want to spend time or energy advocating for.

[mariusor]

> But you shouldn't ever have the right to unilaterally make that call for everyone.

In this hypothetical I'm only making the call for the people of my instance, not for everyone. Like I said, you'd be free to join other instances where people are willing to entertain your point of view.

The audacity of assuming that the server that I pay and care for should be a vehicle for content that I don't agree with is baffling to me. It's my house, my rules, simple as.

[echelon]

Sure, that's absolutely your right.

I just want spaces for me and others where this isn't the default imposed upon everyone. I don't want to subscribe to [x filtering] unless I choose.

House rules and filtering should be opt-in and not the default for the public commons.

The legislators are going to make rules that enforce these technological straddles, and the defaults will slowly change in directions you neither anticipate nor enjoy.

We shouldn't accept ActivityPub as the end state solution to these problems. If anything, large instances (and thus their owners) will win out, and this just entrenches the status quo of tiny cabals in power censoring things that displease them.

[vidarh]

My Mastodon instance is not a public commons. If I choose to let you join it, it is on my terms. If you don't like that, there are others, or you can run your own. The "public commons" is the system of federation, not the instances.

[mariusor]

> House rules and filtering should be opt-in and not the default for the public commons.

I can't understand how you can think that fediverse instances are "public commons". Each of them is run under the rules of the people that keep them running and not everyone can be moot to be able to suffer everything on their servers.

The public commons part of the fediverse is formed of the many software that you can just pick up and run yourself.

[echelon]

Mastodon is thought of as "distributed social media", when in reality it's not much different than Reddit without central corporate control and profit.

Instance owners can block anyone based on manual or automated rules. It's just an extension of the status quo. This is fantastic for building insular communities, but it doesn't get us into a better place with respect to individual user freedom. There are still power dynamics and the end users are not powerful.

My concern is that we stop here and this becomes "distributed social networking". What we need more than anything -- more than Mastodon and ActivityPub -- are protocols that enable peer to peer communication where no node can impose its will upon others and the barrier to participation in the broad community doesn't demand fielty to powerful moderators.

[krapp]

The status quo is that most people don't want pure anarchy, they want communities, and communities have boundaries. Uncensored free-for-all discussion only results in the most aggressively toxic elements and effective spammers driving away the rest. Even the guy who runs Gab recently found that out.

If that's what you want, I'm sure you can already find it somewhere. But I think you're in the minority, and it certainly isn't what's needed "more than anything."

[echelon]

Why would you think I want anarchy? I want a public park. A protocol as free as the old web and BitTorrent.

Gab attracted its group because it was the anti-Reddit. People banned from Reddit went there. Of course it was filled with anarchy and racism.

I don't want all of our protocols and platforms to have a higher class of user with God mode. That's inequitable, and that's what Masto is today. And Reddit. And HN. And every other centralized platform.

I'm a moderate centrist and I get censored by everybody. The right, the left. People want to shut you up unless you agree with them. And often times it's not about silencing harm, but rather power tripping. People get off on that.

More than anything, I'm deeply afraid of censorship. It's a real and very slippery slope. You might think you're the one getting to pick and choose the topics today, but very quickly that will escape you.