Mastodon was supposed to be the answer to many social media problems. Instead of being one site under the control of one group of people, it’s many independent instances. If administrators on one became troublesome, you could move to another. You could find an instance that reflected your values and had the kind of people you like. It’s become something different.
Eugen Rochko, the founder of Mastodon, recently boasted:
I’d like to get it out there that the onboarding experience changed a fair bit this year. We don’t force people to choose a server anymore, so getting started shouldn’t be any more complicated than on any other site.
In the strict sense, no one was ever forced to choose a server. As far as I know, no court has ever ordered anyone to get a Mastodon account. But everyone who uses Mastodon has to choose one, and that hasn’t changed. It’s just that people now are herded into the big servers and have to make an extra effort to pick any of the others. That’s a step backward, toward monolithic social media.
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Does US federal law mandate a “kill switch” for alcohol-impaired drivers in cars made in the future? According to several fact checkers, no. However, an article by Jon Miltimore for FEE shows that it does.
The issue isn’t one of what the law contains, but of terminology. In claiming there is no kill-switch mandate, USA Today refers to the very text that mandates it:
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I just received the following email from the MIT Free Speech Alliance, regarding the malicious email that I discussed in a recent post. It came just a little while after I submitted an inquiry on the subject, but unless they can write really fast, I don’t think there’s a causal connection. Here’s the message, with their email redacted since I like to be cautious about posting addresses on the Web. (The address of the perpetrator doesn’t merit any caution.)
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My latest article for Liberty Fund is now out: “The Political Philosophy of Tolkien.”
J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings presents several societies with different approaches to government. The most prominent include the idyllic Shire, the grand realm of Gondor, the hardy kingdom of Rohan, and the absolute dictatorship of Mordor. Looking at them gives strong indications of his views of government. In addition, we have his own words on the kind of governance he favored.
The most detailed description of a governmental structure is that of the Shire, the home of the Hobbits. …