@Paulatics First of all, thanks for being here on #Mastodon. A #Canadian Senator! That's so cool. ❤️

Mastodon, as a *distributed* platform, has no algorithms other than people just "boosting", and "starring" posts. There is no "unseen hand" (of the platform owners themselves) which unfairly promotes certain hidden agendas, turning one's feed into this "dark-patterned" psychological mind-game. The documentary movies "The Social Dilemma" and "The Great Hack" talked about these dark patterns, which are the **real** elephants in the room, IMHO. Many of these dark patterns don't happen here on Mastodon. It's a night and day difference to me.

While it's true that there are bad actors on these #mastodon instances, IMHO there is almost always better moderation on a per-instance basis. Also, each Mastodon instance posts its rules (its social values, and boundaries of enforcement) before joining, thereby allowing for the unique culture of each community - hopefully a locally/regionally-aligned one. Users can "Mute" and "Block" problematic users easily, which is a further mechanism of moderation in the hands of every user, including youth. Parents would ideally explain the importance of developing a moral compass _which knows how to do this "Muting" and "Blocking"_. **At the end of the day there's no escape from the need for good parenting.** Effective parenting is the key to this all, I say.

For these reasons, I say #Mastodon is different, and Canadian #Mastodon instances (at least) should escape such a ban, especially what with the need to get our #ElbowsUp, and protect our Data Sovereignty/autonomy. The ban I suggest would be for those American "TechBro" platforms: TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram (provably the worst of all psychologically, for teens and youth wholesale), Youtube, etc. There are Open Source alternatives to all of these, which Canadians can get their elbows up to host themselves, or sign up for accounts on.

Myself, I self-host a blog, a Hyper8 video website (it's like a Youtube Channel), an RSS feed, a photo-sharing site (Immich) a bit similar to Instagram, two Mastodon instances, two wikis, and even a Minecraft-like game server. I host all these things and more, right now. Not next month, or next year. All #OpenSource. The Americans can do their own thing, while we Canadians do our own thing with our awesome #European friends, who also take their #DataSovereignty very seriously. #EU #Europe

ActivityPub allows for a Mastodon-like experience for youths to sign up for, and they have been age-verified **on those instances**. Canadian Public libraries could potentially host such "youth-only" ActivityPub servers (which federate just with each other, at all other Canadian libraries). The librarians - who look at ID cards to issue library cards anyway - could issue such accounts. Hire me and I'll set these servers up.