Techrights Statement: The Solution is Not More Censorship or Moving to Another Mastodon Instance, the Core Problem is Social Control Media Including Mastodon
We generally prefer not to comment on what's happening in Mastodon right now (no, it's not about just one instance; no instance is an "island") but this isn't about nazism or death threats or anything illegal. We've put some links about it in Daily Links, even the Gemini edition of links. People are understandably upset.
Censorship typically leads to additional (new) issues and Mastodon - like all Social Control Media - has these sorts of issues. Administrators and moderators are being subjected to "cancel culture" tactics of extortion - even over things they themselves never wrote or agree/d with.
Months ago we published:
- No, Mastodon is Not Growing, Social Control Media is Generally Waning
- Graveyard of Mastodons: A Vast Number of Inactive Accounts
Are you tired of what's happening in Mastodon? Then quit the whole darn thing (don't just change instance). Good riddance. Now you have more free time to do what matters (no, checking notifications does not matter, it's addiction).
If you have something to say, then set up your own site and make sure it has RSS/Atom feeds. ISPs and webhosts are reasonably well protected against brigading - a term that Torvalds of Git and Linux fame adopted some months ago.
I myself was in Mastodon as soon as it launched and so was Tux Machines (the wife's site). We should have quit sooner. Don't move, quit. Tux Machines had to change instances; it proved to be a waste of time. I too had to change twice (site shutdowns and censorship); after that... no more!
The logical conclusion is that there's something wrong with Social Control Media (groupthinkware). See this strip. █
Update (02/05/2025)
Ian Jackson from Debian and Xen has just responded to this.
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Free Software, internal politics, and governance
If your governance systems don’t work, then there is no effective redress against bad or even malicious decisions. Your roleholders and subteams are unaccountable power centres.
Power radically distorts every human relationship, and it takes great strength of character for an unaccountable power centre not to eventually become an unaccountable toxic cabal.
So if you have a reasonable sized community, but don’t see your formal governance systems working — people debating things, votes, leadership making explicit decisions — that doesn’t mean everything is fine, and all the decisions are great, and there’s no politics happening.
It just means that most of your community have given up on the official process. It also probably means that some parts of your project have formed toxic and unaccountable cabals. Those who won’t put up with that will leave.
The same is true if the only governance actions that ever happen are massive drama. That means that only the most determined victim of a bad decision, will even consider using such a process.
[...]
You can hate politicians indiscriminately, and criticise anyone you see doing politics.
If you do this, then you are abdicating your decisionmaking authority, to those who are the most effective manipulators, or the most committed to getting their way. You’re tacitly supporting the existing power bases. You’re ceding power to the best liars, to those with the least scruples, and to the people who are most motivated by dominance. This is precisely the opposite of what you wanted.
If enough people won’t do politics, and hate anyone who does, your discussion spaces will be reduced to a battleground of only the hardiest and the most toxic.