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.

At the same time, Mastodon has fallen into fragments separated by admin-imposed barriers. Paradoxically, it’s lost diversity and cohesion at the same time. As I previously wrote, blocklists put up walls between instances, and overworked admins use them without paying close attention. Some sites have outrageously restrictive policies; one site, fandom.ink, bans defending people against accusations of racism, even to the extent of offering devil’s advocate arguments.

The Mastodon site Journa.host will be of special interest to some writers. It’s an instance exclusively for journalists. I came across a blog post by a Mastodon admin named Jerry, about whom I know nothing. The issue was a New York Times article which someone had linked to from Journa.host. As Jerry describes it (without providing the link):

I read the offending NYT article, which was so long as to make my brain fuzzy, and while it certainly smacks of “both side” journalism, it appeared to me, at least, to be doctors and researchers warning about the unintended side effects of some drug treatments.

In other words, an informed and balanced article, at least in Jerry’s estimation. Apparently that’s a problem.

Several other instances in the Fediverse have chosen to defederate from or limit journa.host due to their propagating transphobic material and inadequate moderator response. It took me too long to act here – I can make excuses about being busy and whatnot, but here we are.
 
I have instituted a limit on journa.host. That means their posts won’t show up in our timelines unless you (an infosec.exchange member) are specifically following an account. I will be watching to see whether journa.host makes a move to correct their moderation practices, in which case I will lift the limitations, or doubles down, in which case I will move to fully suspend and defederate with journa.host.

The post is a year old, and I don’t know what’s happened since then. Take it as a snapshot in time. Regardless, it strains comprehension. What “transphobic material” is Jerry referring to? As far as I can tell, it refers to linking to the article in question, whose main point was concern about the side effects of drug treatments. If these are treatments which trans people use, they’d want to know about any risks involved. Jerry’s reasoning seems to be that some trans people have complained about the article, therefore linking to it is unacceptable. If you can wrap your head around that, you’re ahead of me.

Jerry gives one clue:

Infosec.exchange is not a free speech instance. If your expectations are otherwise for infosec.exchange, I invite you to depart now.

It’s hard to do journalism on Mastodon when admins brag about being censorious and limit your site for providing too much useful information.

A while back I moved Filk News to a different server on Mastodon because the moderator had limited access to Liberdon, where I have my personal account, and then asked me to provide evidence against Liberdon. Yes, against the instance I used. As I said a while back, it’s Kafka’s Mastodon.

Tusky, one of the popular Mastodon clients, blocks access to some servers. In fact, it doesn’t just block them; it “rickrolls” the user, redirecting to an irrelevant (though enjoyable) song. The FAQ disingenuously says it “does not support” those servers, but it isn’t a support issue. It takes extra code to prevent access, not to allow it, and even more code to redirect users. Imagine a browser that redirects you to a Rick Astley song when you enter a URL its developers disapprove of. It could happen. I deleted Tusky from my phone when I learned about that behavior; even though I’d never accessed those sites, I regard an app that acts that way as malicious code. Somehow Tusky’s reputation hasn’t bombed.

Mastodon looks more feudal than federal these days, with instance admins acting as overlords deciding what their subjects can discuss and link to. Fortunately, the ActivityPub protocol is bigger than Mastodon, and it can be used by federations that aren’t so inclined to censor everything. So far I haven’t found an instance on one of those that’s worth moving to, but I’m looking.