The collapse of Twitter is a system breakdown. Mastodon and the fediverse represent something different: _system change_. From for-profit "Big Tech" to nonprofit, open source, community-owned public spaces.
System change is always harder than you think. It always incurs short-term costs, with hoped for long-term benefits.
The next few weeks will be really tough for the fediverse. Stick around, vibe with it, and you just might help us put a huge part of the web back in community hands. <3
Expect some of the following to happen in the coming weeks:
- celebrities with huge follower counts pushing tiny community-run servers to their knees
- instance admin burnout; shutting down of servers
- big new servers that don't "vibe" with common rules or culture being widely defederated
- some notable account violating an instance code of conduct and throwing a fit
- lots of people ragequitting Mastodon for one reason or another
- etc.
It'll be a rough ride. Patience and strength, all.
The US is incredibly politically polarized right now, and Musk has aligned himself very visibly with the authoritarian right-wing (to the extent of posting a homophobic Hillary Clinton conspiracy theory).
That's the sort of thing that pushes people over the edge. He seems to be using every day as another opportunity to piss off millions of users of the platform he bought, positioning it increasingly more as a "Fox News of social media".
Erik Moeller
Z O R A N G R B I C
PJ "Vote Green" Coffey