On Mastodon, if you take the wrong side, those on the correct side will defederate from you. Not merely because you host (or don't host) the content they like (or dislike), but because you merely enable (or discriminate against) those who host that content.
Of course, all sides are wrong in somebody's eyes; so no matter what you do, you will be defederated from by at least somebody.
The way Mastodon works, defederation irreversibly breaks all follow relationships, without notifying those involved. If you disagree with the decision, you can migrate to another server, but you won't get your followers / followees back, not without everybody involved doing a lot of manual drudge work. This is just one way in which the myth of "users are free to do what they wish, if they disagree with the admins, they can migrate somewhere else" breaks.
To make matters worse, there's no way to see which users that you may wish to follow are / will be hidden from you if you choose a given instance. Defederation lists are a (somewhat open) secret; it's good practice to announce defederations, but there's no automated API endpoint to see them, so there's no way to answer the question of "who am I going to lose if I migrate from x to y."
> On Mastodon, if you take the wrong side, those on the correct side will defederate from you. Not merely because you host (or don't host) the content they like (or dislike), but because you merely enable (or discriminate against) those who host that content.
Ok, so? People block you all the time because they don't agree with you, why is that a problem? If people don't want to hear what you say, shouldn't they be allowed to not listen?
Personally, I don't understand that point of view of blocking people who you disagree with, for me the point of the internet is to find different views and perspectives, but I'm also fine with others filtering out whatever I say, doesn't really impact me either way.
If you want no rules what you say, run your own instance. Depending on what you say, some people will want to listen, others will want to filter your opinion away, I don't think either sides are "wrong" for that, it's just like in real life. If you want to use someone else's instance, you follow their rules. It mostly isn't harder than this.
No, because this happens on a per-admin level, not on a per-user level.
You go on a cruise for two weeks and there's a disagreement about whether to federate with Meta or not. Your admin takes a side, whatever that side might be. Two weeks later, you come back and lose 10% of followers, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Yeah, that kind of makes sense to me, you chose that instance because you're OK with that admin making choices for you. Just like how I choose to post comments on HN, and if the admins/moderators tell me to stop something, or that now half my comments are gone for reason X, I can't really cry about it, all I can do is follow what admins do/say or jump ship.
> you chose that instance because you're OK with that admin making choices for you
Nobody chooses instances for that, very few know anything about the admin, people just like the content until... in >70% of cases, bait and switch follows
That's why Mastodon is such an incredible mess, it creates the conditions for serious problems, then goes: "you chose what you knew nothing about, nor there's any way to know anything, therefore... you are the problem".
Yes, if you willing participate in an ecosystem where you know large swaths will be actively against you and try to defederate with you, that's kind of on you. Don't participate in that ecosystem if you don't like it, the ones already inside this ecosystem (like not me), seems to be OK with it and others outside of it (like me) seem to be OK with them having their own ecosystem where they can do these things.
Maybe I'm lucky in the instance I chose or the content I like being uncontroversial, but this isn't my experience at all.
I've heard of instances carrying a lot of Nazi content being banned, and of instances choosing not to re-host adult media (which makes the interface a bit worse, but doesn't actually block you from getting that). But most admins from what I've seen are pretty clear on this in the about page of the instance.
70% seems like a wild claim.
I have had content I like being removed from major social media platforms, like reddit and tumblr.
Also, if you choose an instance and it gets shut down, you just start another account. This isn't serious business, it's social media. To me, complaining about having to choose an instance to start is like complaining about having to choose a class at the start of an RPG.
Personally, I really love mastodon as a platform and I don't understand all the hate it gets here.
So... basically the bad problem everybody was intending to solve in the first place?
As far as I know, Mastodon didn't really set out to solve that particular problem. But it does seem like ATProto did, as it seems a lot easier to move around in ATProto than Mastodon (and ActivityPub in general).
Yep. Changing servers is easy. You just have to update the central PLC registry run by Blue Sky LLC to say which server you're hosted on now.
... wait a minute.
You're complaining that moving away from a PDS means you have to let that PDS know you're moving away? Do you understand what you're actually complaining about, or I the one who misunderstand what you're complaining about?
In case you haven't read them before, the docs for migrating are here: https://atproto.com/guides/account-migration
> there's no way to answer the question of "who am I going to lose if I migrate from x to y."
Ahckchually, once you create an account you can use the API endpoint for remote lookup to test in an automated manner which nodes are and aren't reachable.