Dr. Casey FieslerNov 5, 2022

I want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly: If you switch Mastodon instances, it's easy to transfer your network/follows over (I did this), but NOT your content. Is this right? If you change instances you can't move your toots to the new one?

This makes the "don't be held hostage by a platform!" benefit less compelling doesn't it? Like what if someone just doesn't pay the bill for your instance? All your content's gone?

Am I missing something?

Show threadDaniel HernandezNov 5, 2022
@cfiesler This is a good question. If I were an instance administrator, I would not allow people to migrate everything to my instance because each instance has its policies. But if I want to migrate myself to my self-hosted instance, I would allow all my posts. The problem is what happens with posts of other people answering my posts (and any link to my posts). I cannot modify those posts because I don't own other people's posts.
Show threadDaniel Hernandez
@cfiesler, to my little knowledge, an #ActivityPub post references other posts with URLs (in the inReplyTo property). Hence, if you migrate all your posts, you will break references to them. A possible solution is having redirection in your first host to your new host. However, this is still vulnerable to the closing of the first host. Another solution is to notify every instance with posts pointing to your host, so they can update references.
Nov 5, 2022 at 5:29pmWhalebird