[darqis]

The Fediverse has one problem, concentration of users on few instances, mastodon.social being the largest. And cancel culture. Highly politically motivated cancel culture. What right do they believe to have to dictate to their users what the can and can't read? That should be solely in the user's hand.

The irony of writing this in HN is ... whatever the right word is Also, fragmentation and visibility. It's neigh impossible to find interesting content if you're not on the main big instances.

[brookst]

I’m pretty close to being a free speech absolutist (side-eye to the guy who ruined the term), but IMO one of the worst things to happen to free speech is this conflation of “right to speak” with “right to be heard”.

People have a right to ignore speech, and to establish standards for speech on their private property. If there is market demand for a service that filters out content based on ideology, whether mastodon.social or Fox News, so be it.

It can be toxic and a social negative, but any fix is worse than the problem.

[bediger4000]

one of the worst things to happen to free speech is this conflation of “right to speak” with “right to be heard”

Thank you for this tight summary. As a greybeard, I'll note this conflation was present from very early on, and it was partly responsible for the heat death of Usenet. No amount of logical, prepared rebuttal budges people from the idea that the two things are the same. The conflation might be a human tendency, a cognitive bias that almost everyone has.

[croes]

I have no problem getting blocked but my only block on the Fediverse was accompanied by a block for all users on the same instance as me.

[DavideNL]

This info is useless without the details;

Which instance are you referring to? Who specifically blocked you?

A single user’s action doesn’t represent the entire Fediverse.

[scoofy]

So start your own instance. You have the right to speak, not the right to be heard.

[croes]

You are missing the point.

Why where all the others on the same instance blocked?

They did nothing and their only connection to me is we are registered on the same instance.

BTW You have the right to speak, not the right to be heard is nonsense.

By that logic even North Korea has freedom speech.

Freedom of speech just doesn’t mean unlimited reach and limitless speech

[scoofy]

In North Korea, you can’t start your own instance to say what you want. They will still jail you for what you say. That’s the actual point.

The fact that other people want to be on a system that blocks you is their business, not yours. The point of the fediverse is you get to choose your own censorship.

[cykros]

If you got to choose your own censorship it'd be nice. As it stands, other instances can decide to defederate with what you're on. Sometimes, even knocking off servers you had connectivity with that were indirect.

The Fediverse is to Nostr what the legacy telephone system was to the Internet.

[cykros]

"Market demand."

If I've got a profile on let's say, mastodon.social, and I have a following, and people I follow across other servers, and then mastodon.social decides that due to a few people over on outrageousposts.social, I can no longer access their content, nor they mine, I am left with exactly two choices: write that portion of my network off as a complete loss, or create a completely new profile on a new instance, and build up a new network from scratch.

That anyone puts up with this state of affairs suggests to me that people just don't know Nostr solved this problem 3 years ago.

I get that compared to Facebook, Twitter, etc, Mastodon does seem like an improvement even with this state of affairs -- after all, you at least CAN just create a new profile rather than getting booted off of the network entirely. It was handy for a few years. But a better alternative has been created, and I for one won't be looking back.

[raffael_de]

why not let people say whatever they want? you already hinted the appropriate solution which is that you don't have to listen.

[Arainach]

Community members are a finite resource. Moderators are a downright scare resource.

When you let people spew hateful things you drive away the people you want in the community and are left with a toxic cesspool that no one wants to visit. Your moderators will burn out and leave as well. That's a very reliable way for your space to die.

Then there's the fact that it takes far more energy to refute bullshit than to spew it, and this asymmetry means that "just let them speak" means the toxic liars win.

[raffael_de]

> Moderators are a downright scare resource.

if you restrict moderation to stuff like gore and porn, then you don't need that many moderators.

> When you let people spew hateful things you drive away the people you want in the community

can't people just unfollow or block others whose opinions they don't want to see?

> Then there's the fact that it takes far more energy to refute bullshit than to spew it

there is no obligation to refute bullshit to begin with. it's a personal choice about how to spend your time.

> and this asymmetry means that "just let them speak" means the toxic liars win.

what's there to win? there is nothing to win for anybody. there's only something to lose and that's time.

[bigbadfeline]

> what's there to win? there is nothing to win for anybody. there's only something to lose and that's time.

If there's nothing to win and you're only losing time around here... why are you here in the first place?

Stop losing by trying to convince us how cool it is to lose... because all of your suggestions amount to urging good men to do nothing.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"

[handoflixue]

> if you restrict moderation to stuff like gore and porn, then you don't need that many moderators.

Have you ever been involved with moderating even a small subreddit or Discord server? I'm on a server with one moderator and it routinely gets spammed while the guy is asleep.

> can't people just unfollow or block others whose opinions they don't want to see?

How do I block people BEFORE seeing the opinions I don't want to see? Trolls can roll up a new account for every single post they make, if they want to.

> there is no obligation to refute bullshit to begin with.

No, but if you're neither blocking nor refuting it, then your community is going to quickly become majority bullshit.

[raffael_de]

it seems to me that the networking design is flawed. just to give a simple example: whitelisting (only seeing content of friends and followees) versus blacklisting (seeing everything ranked by an algorithm). wouldn't whitelisting already solve most of those issues? that would actually be my preferred modus anyway.

[t0bia_s]

if you restrict moderation to stuff like gore and porn, then you don't need that many moderators.

On mastodon, porn-like content is mostly welcomed. Especially with anime or fox characters. Not sure why.

[sph]

Because it overwhelmingly attracts a certain demographic of people who have a higher-than-average rate of various paraphilias as well as interest in software but such arguments are a bit taboo to discuss even if they are quite self-evident.

I liked the Internet better when it was all nerds and only code cared, rather than gender identity or listing neuroses in own's social media profile as if it was an audition for an echo chamber choir.

[Arainach]

> what's there to win? there is nothing to win for anybody.

There are ideological battles to be fought by all sorts of parties - convincing groups to hate each other, to support or oppose the governments in power, to spread division and destroy societies.

There are trolls who consider it a battle to be won, and the more they succeed the more everyone else leaves the platform.

The party currently in control of the United States is there largely due to people who were fed divisive narratives (often in online channels) to make them hate other groups and a significant number of them consider it more important to "own the libs" and "hurt the right people" than to have the government actually improve their own circumstances. So yes, there's absolutely things to be won.

[raffael_de]

most of those dynamics are basically just in your head. for example: why would someone care if a troll considers a "battle" won?

[toss1]

If a social network has an ACTUAL straight chronological feed of only accts you follow, or lists you curate, that works great.

Somebody posts abhorrent Nazi racist crap, or lies about what is happening, you shut them off, and they'll never be heard by you again. Yes, you need to see/hear the crap or propaganda once for each Nazi or liar, but that's it.

The problem is nearly every social platform needs to increase your engagement get you to click or scroll just another time so they get to show you more adverts and make more money and claim more 'engagement' to juice their stock price. So along with having to listen to the advertisements, you ALSO are REQUIRED to see/listen to the crap and lies.

The good solution — "you don't have to listen" — is not an actual option in the real world.

(NB: This is why Section 230 should only protect web providers if they have no algorithm. Once they have an algo, they exercise more editorial control than any newspaper or broadcast editor — they ARE responsible for the content, not because they posted it, their users did, but because they routed it to you.)

[raffael_de]

the context here is the fediverse and not social platforms based on financial incentives.

[trentnix]

Another example of "everything before the word but is horse ****".

[tacitusarc]

Imagine, if you would, that the strict libertarians had much more influence in shaping the country. So much so that the roads are toll roads, the parks require a fee, and almost no libraries exist because the ROI just isn’t there.

Furthermore, there is no anti-trust legislation, and as a result, there are only a few companies that control all meeting places: the parks, the coffee shops, the roads, the pubs. And they have set up constant monitoring technology.

If you want to set up a protest on a street corner, it better align with the corporation’s views, or they will ban your access to the roads. If you want to talk with friends at the pub, don’t say anything out of line or you’re not coming back. Events can take place in parks, but make sure you only discuss the weather.

Of course, this is fine: you can always just meet at your own home and say what you think, because that is your own property.

…

I realize the analogy is overwrought, but there just doesn’t exist an online equivalent of a public space, and ideological enforcement is trivial. Comparing it to the rules we have for physical spaces mean we need to imagine what those physical spaces would be like if they operated like online spaces, and frankly the result is dystopian (in my opinion).

Surely the solution isn’t just to dismiss it as a non-problem? Or, I suppose, to stop looking for a solution because… solutions so far considered have negative side effects, which feels (practically speaking) the same to me.

[krapp]

Physical public spaces are regulated. Laws still apply there.

There are countless online spaces which operated like physical public spaces, where anything legal goes. Move off of the mainstream web and even the illegal stuff is allowed. You can literally run your own instance of whatever application on the Fediverse and follow whomever you want. No matter how radical or extremist your ideology is, someone will happily host it.

It's only a problem if one insists that all online spaces must be run under the same anarchic principles and must be forced to give anyone a platform, but that's far more dystopian than what we have now.

[onion2k]

What right do they believe to have to dictate to their users what the can and can't read? That should be solely in the user's hand.

Are they choosing what people can read, or are they choosing what they're willing to federate? No one is stopping people writing and publishing things on federated services. People are only choosing what they're willing to broadcast over the part of the service they run.

[Angostura]

Exactly. Each instance is deciding who to federate with and each user is deciding which instance to join

[xigoi]

Despite that, Fediverse promoters love to say “It doesn’t matter which instance you join”.

[neogodless]

I think it should be ever so slightly more nuanced than that.

It doesn't matter which instance you join if you're just getting started, and don't know enough to make a meaningful decision about which instance to join.

After a week or a month, you might understand how it works a bit better, and also which communities exist, and might have an informed opinion about which community you resonate with.

[dvlsg]

Yeah, I also don't understand their take. HN also dictates what their users can and can't read. There's tons of stuff that can't be posted here without being removed. That's a good thing.

[philistine]

You are entitled speech, but not to force a theatre company to give you their stage from which their captive audience has to hear it.

[xigoi]

Mastodon does not have content promotion. It’s more analogous to the air that transmits your voice than a theater stage.

[philistine]

Nope. Air is static and no one has to pay to keep it there. A mastodon server is private property, and needs maintenance and money to stay on. You cannot force a private entity to host your speech. They always have a choice.

[xigoi]

Mastodon is a federated service, like e-mail. Would you use an e-mail server where the admin reads messages delivered to your inbox and deletes the ones they don’t like?

[philistine]

Mastodon is exactly like email. Try running a nazi newsletter off of Gmail and see what happens.

[xigoi]

Gmail, maybe. There are a plenty of providers that respect your privacy and don’t read your e-mails.

Also, I’d like to see if anyone has ever been banned from Gmail for sending an e-mail saying that hating all men is not nice.

[archagon]

Uh, you mean like a spam filter? I would not use an e-mail service without one.

[xigoi]

No. A spam filter still allows you to view the e-mails and reply to them if you want to.

Also, I would certainly not want an e-mail service where the spam filter is based on the admin’s political opinions.

[dawnerd]

I run a very small instance and have zero problems finding content. I have a constant stream of posts to the point where its hard to keep up with. It's pretty much a myth that there's no content unless you're on a large instance.

[wat10000]

If you don’t like how your server is run, go to a different one! That’s the whole point of the thing. You can even set up your own without too much trouble. If you believe servers shouldn’t be doing this stuff then you can make it happen. Nobody owes it to you.

[Finnucane]

Instances often block users or other instances because their users have asked them to do that. They often have posted guidelines about what they will or won't allow. Users will hold them to it. Users can and do block other users on an individual basis. If a lot of people are blocking you, the problem might not be them.

[darqis]

that's incorrect.

They report content they don't agree with. And if the instance owner shared that, the federated user or even instance gets banned.

Most prominent example is the Ukraine. Even if you post truthfully and in context, that the Ukraine did support the 3rd Reich with link to the Wikipedia article, you get banned, no warning.

So there is political censorship. And the fediverse is super political. The 3 big content areas in the Fediverse are politics, LGBT and nudes/nudes drawings including sadly CSAM.

Blocking (and reporting) an instance because of CSAM I can understand. But that too should happen at an individual level.

[ashton314]

It’s not actually that concentrated.

https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/

[jfengel]

It's not practical for every user to choose each individual message to read. We allow others to help us filter. If you want the unfiltered version you go get it (and then try to find something under the torrent of spam).

The right to speak is not the same as the right to an audience. If users want to hear you they will seek you out. If not, you've said your peace, and that's all you're entitled to.

[t0bia_s]

Fediverse on mastodon increase social bubbles. Especially when admin of instance has apathy to any kind of different opinions and censor anything like that.

[sdsd]

I'm on infosec.exchange and there's plenty of content, especially since it federates so I get content from all over the fediverse. I don't mind that there are only several very large instances, since federating to them from a tiny or even personal instance is no problem.

[idiotsecant]

'cancel culture' is when you decline to federate content users don't want, I guess?

[xigoi]

No, it’s when you decline to federate content that some users don’t want (and many do).

[idiotsecant]

If the users wanted the content it's accessible, I'm not sure what your issue is. Do you use mastadon or is this a feelings issue?

[xigoi]

I am talking about when instance X defederates with instance Y, so the users on X cannot see content from Y, even if they took no part in the decision.

[archagon]

“and many do”

Yeah, that’s definitely citation needed.

[xigoi]

If many people did not want to read other people’s controversial opinions, we wouldn"t be having this whole debate.

[archagon]

It seems like most of the people complaining about this aren't actually on Mastodon.

[xigoi]

Well, obviously you’re not going to be on a platform you dislike. I have signed up for Mastodon several times, but always ended up finding the instance dependency off-putting. I wish for a protocol where the instance mostly doesn’t matter and you can trivially switch to a different one, like with e-mail.

[krapp]

The only true fascists are the ones who insist that actions should have consequences....

[jonkoops]

> And cancel culture. Highly politically motivated cancel culture.

Most of the people who started on Mastodon are people of the LGBT+ community that were getting constantly harassed on other platforms. This 'cancel culture' is just a healthy attitude to having a zero tolerance policy on abuse, it is how it avoids being the enormous bigoted alt-right techbro mess that is now X.

Since Mastodon is federated, you can choose the instance you want to use, and what you see. Just don't expect other instances to actively want to engage there.

[snackerblues]

> you can choose ... what you see

Not true. You cannot federate with tech news and bigoted alt-right techbro (based) instances. That decision is made for you by the janitors of the instances you federate with. Just like reddit, where the janitors of the subreddits decide what you're allowed to see. Your agency is gone.

Compare this to X, where if it's not illegal, you can choose to see or say it with no repercussions beyond an individual blocking you, which solves their problem of not wanting to see what you say. It's the perfect system!