[shadowgovt]

Meanwhile, nothing has changed on Mastodon.

(I personally don't think Bluesky is a bad idea and I'm glad for more things in the ecosystem. But the point of decentralizing isn't just to protect against editorial constraint by the service owner; it's to protect against government pressure too. Mississippi could go after Mastodon service providers, but it'll cost them a lot more to find and chase 'em all).

[esafak]

If you think technology will protect you from censorship look at China. They can stop all but the most persistent users. It is just a question of how much they care to; they have the means. And most users are closer to Homer Simpson than Edward Snowden.

[shadowgovt]

Mississippi would have a hell of a time convincing every ISP in the US to put up a firewall too.

They could try, but not even China could build an impregnable firewall.

[ajb]

They don't have to go after all of them, they just have to make an example of one. See: qwest's Joseph Nacchio: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio

[devmor]

God, Nacchio's story is infuriating.

"Sorry, you can't use this evidence that exonerates you - it would be bad for the government."

[nemomarx]

If you get 75% coverage (or let's say the 5 biggest ISPs here, comcast and so on) you don't need to really chase the long tail of small providers that hard. It would effectively be unavailable to non technical people at that point.

[TheDauthi]

AT&T, Comcast, C-Spire. I don't know anyone who is on anything else here unless it's through a university.

[avs733]

six months ago I would have said the same thing about US universities.

[terminalshort]

Universities? The primary revenue source for basically 100% of US universities is the federal government. The concept of a private university in the US is little more than a legal technicality.

[throwaway290]

> They could try, but not even China could build an impregnable firewall.

They can learn from Russia. Censorship in Russia now surpassed China. TSPU are now in every ISP facility. They pass all traffic through them and allow arbitrary bans of specific resources/protocols/etc in specific cities or whole regions.

[irusensei]

I heard from a friend that went to China and the hotel staff right away asks if they want to VPN their room.

[rwbhn]

Using a staff provided VPN sounds iffy.

[immibis]

They don't need to. If only 1% of the people are able to access censored content and therefore hold censored ideas, the majority will treat them as crazy pariahs.

It's the same mechanism that makes us consider the 1% of flat earthers crazy. Sadly the mechanism works based on how many people believe a thing, not whether it's true, so it can also block true things if only 1% of people believe them.

[shkkmo]

We think flat earthers are crazy because it is a fairly trivial thing to prove them wrong. If you believe something that is that easily disproved AND widely understood to be so, there is clearly something wrong with you.

[throwaway290]

We don't think that people who think there's a bearded man in heaven are crazy, even if that's crazier than thinking earth is flat.

We don't think they are crazy because they are not 1%, they are majority.

Most people think flat earthers are crazy not because they proved them wrong. Just most people around them think flat earthers are crazy and that's enough.

[Loughla]

No we think flat earthers are crazy because it's trivial to prove wrong, whereas religious belief is a matter of faith that can't really be proven one way or the other, regardless of how silly the belief is.

They're just different.

[wkat4242]

> We don't think that people who think there's a bearded man in heaven are crazy, even if that's crazier than thinking earth is flat.

Um speak for yourself.

I think most of us atheists do think that but we're too polite to not say it. Besides, it won't change anything so there's no point.

[immibis]

Then we need to make every user the most persistent user. How many governments have given up because Tor Browser ships anti-censorship defaults?

[beeflet]

technology does not work unless you use it

[tclancy]

What does that mean?

[beeflet]

China isn't an example of the impact of poltics vs technology because chinese people generally don't use de-centralized or private tech in the first place

[est]

On a side note I have very credible source telling that China might want open up the Internet "in a matter of days"

idk how "open" would this mean but drastic changes are coming.

[wkat4242]

That would be a big change considering things appear to be getting worse not better: https://securityboulevard.com/2025/08/great-firewall-china-w...

Would be great for the Chinese if true though.

[est]

yeah my source confirmed it's one of the final tweaking on the backbone "intranet". Some software are getting uninstalled and downgraded to rudimentary hardcoded rules.

[brigade]

Mississippi can’t unless they can establish personal jurisdiction over a specific Mastodon operator. Which if that instance’s owner/operators don’t live in Mississippi, probably requires a novel application of the Zippo test [1] that’s a bit questionable for how noncommercial Mastodon tries to be.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_jurisdiction_in_Inter...

[Waterluvian]

Or they pick a few and make an example out of them.

[shadowgovt]

I believe the example would be "Good luck with that I'm in Germany."

[egypturnash]

That would be mastodon.social, yes, but there's lots of instances that are not.

Like I run one and I'm in Louisiana and I sure do not have the funds to mount a legal defense.

[Forbo]

Sounds like a failure to properly build a threat model. Consider relocating your instance and begin using privacy mitigations like VPN.

Much cheaper than an attorney.

[JumpCrisscross]

> the example would be "Good luck with that I'm in Germany”

Mississippi is a red state. Bluesky is liberal. I could see the White House turning the dispute into a tariff or defence spat.