Today Mastodon is taking another step towards its founding ideals: independence and non-profit ownership. We're transferring ownership of key assets to a new, European not-for-profit entity, ensuring our mission remains true to a decentralised social web, not corporate control. #MastodonNonProfit

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/01/the-people-should-own-the-town-square/

The people should own the town square

It is more important than ever that the social web is not controlled by corporations. Today, Mastodon is taking another step towards its founding ideals: independence and non-profit ownership. We're transferring ownership of key assets to a new European not-for-profit entity, ensuring our mission remains true to a decentralised social web, not corporate control.

Mastodon Blog

Eugen's vision for Mastodon was centered on user choice, community, and freedom. Now, we're formalizing that commitment with the formation of a new European non-profit entity. Eugen will transition to an alternative role in the team, with a new CEO to be announced very soon. Stay tuned for updates on these changes.

#MastodonNonProfit

Our core mission remains the same: create tools and spaces for authentic online communities. No changes to your user experience, just a stronger commitment to transparency and community-driven governance. Join us on this journey!

#MastodonNonProfit

We're not just building a social network, we're building a community. Communities thrive when everyone contributes. We're growing our operating budget to invest in our contribution to the Fediverse as a whole, including our commitment to trust and safety, and user experience. Donate to support this vision!

https://joinmastodon.org/sponsors#donate

#MastodonNonProfit

Donate to Mastodon

Donate or become a sponsor and help us build the social web for everyone!

Transparency is a key part of our transition to non-profit ownership. Follow us to stay informed about our progress, priorities, and the move to community-driven governance. Together, we're building a safer, more open Fediverse. Join us 🙂

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/01/the-people-should-own-the-town-square/

#MastodonNonProfit

The people should own the town square

It is more important than ever that the social web is not controlled by corporations. Today, Mastodon is taking another step towards its founding ideals: independence and non-profit ownership. We're transferring ownership of key assets to a new European not-for-profit entity, ensuring our mission remains true to a decentralised social web, not corporate control.

Mastodon Blog
@Mastodon love to see people living their values. Thanks for all you're doing!
@Mastodon Great to see that core #Mastodon organisations are planning to stay outside of the US given the current developments there.

@Mastodon

*unless you happen to condemn the genocide of Gaza or the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

#Gazagenocide

@Captain_Jack_Sparrow @Mastodon
(to be clear, I agree that the situation in Gaza being a genocide)
But that's what Mastodon is trying to say here: You can own your town square. It's up to the instance you're on to decide or you can make your own instance. There is no limit to having your voice be approved by the big corporate overlords of Facebook/Twitter etc....
That's exactly what they're saying here ..
EDIT: Didn't see blogpost also mentions the big two servers. my bad

@thibaultmol @Captain_Jack_Sparrow
In principle, yes. But less so if the network is dominated by huge instances with opaque moderation.

E.g. if @Mastodon 's moderation on their instance were worse than most people imagine wrt Gaza.

@Mastodon @Captain_Jack_Sparrow @thibaultmol you might not be aware of how mastodon.social moderation has been aggressively suppressing Palestinian voices then
@ombremad @Mastodon @Captain_Jack_Sparrow I have heard things about that yeah. But that's why i'm saying: There is mastodon.social and there is mastodon the software.
This post they made is about the software.
There is nothing in the software that limits this speech
@thibaultmol @Captain_Jack_Sparrow @Mastodon no, this is about the whole structure, that is managing both the software and the services. (Which is another issue entirely btw)

@thibaultmol

"There is nothing in the software that limits this speech"

There are, however, very real limits set by the specific people --> administrating <-- the software

Which is what you don't want to admit

Interesting…

cc @ombremad @Mastodon @Captain_Jack_Sparrow

@FinchHaven @ombremad @Mastodon @Captain_Jack_Sparrow

.... I already mentioned in my previous post that I am aware of the moderation happening on mastodon.social. most of them I agree with and some of them I don't.... You don't need to try and think I'm pro Israel... I already said I agree with gaza being a genocide.

The software has moderation tools in place, and it's up to the instance managers to determine what those moderation settings should be.

@thibaultmol @Captain_Jack_Sparrow @FinchHaven @Mastodon but you seem to misunderstand the fact that Mastodon, as a company, is responsible for this, not just for the software. And you stop replying when we tell you that you’re wrong about it. That’s not a great online behavior tbh.

@ombremad @Captain_Jack_Sparrow @FinchHaven @Mastodon I already agreed with everyone on that.....

Mastodon.Social blocking gaza discussions is bad....
And i've already agreed multiple times in this thread that I agree that Gaza is a genocide....

(about me not replying to the previous post: I genuinely missed it. I was getting many notifications and it slipped through... please don't assume just because I miss one message that I'm ignoring it on purpose....)

@ombremad @Captain_Jack_Sparrow @FinchHaven @Mastodon
The post indeed covers mastodon.social and mastodon.online moderation which I missed. so fair enough!

@thibaultmol
"There is nothing in the software that limits this speech."

Let go of the deceptive idea of "the tech itself." The truth is that there is nothing "in" the software at all. Its only animating force is the people using it. Trying to separate technology from people is a fool's errand at best; it actively covers up bad deeds done by people using technology to do them at worst.

@ombremad @Mastodon @Captain_Jack_Sparrow

@SallyStrange @ombremad @Mastodon @Captain_Jack_Sparrow as I mentioned in a previous reply. I had skipped over the blogpost also talking about the two main servers they have. (I knew the existed obv, just read over the section of the blogpost where they talked about them).

So I understand the reason for the original reply better now.

I don't want else to reply honestly

@thibaultmol
Thanks for the additional context. Really I was just ranting a bit about a framework I see as flawed and also way too common.
@ombremad @Mastodon @Captain_Jack_Sparrow

@thibaultmol @Mastodon

@mastodon.social is suppressing my posts because they don't like critiscism of israel's warcrimes against Palestine

I might as well have stayed on fucking xitter

@Captain_Jack_Sparrow @Mastodon
If I see that happening here then I'm done.
10,000s of CHILDREN ARE BEING SLAUGHTERED. And the boss person wants to hush-hush that?

@Quantillion @Mastodon

💯

unfortunately I can't see parasitic fascists like musk and zuckerberg going down without a fight

@Mastodon "We believe social media should help users build bridges, not walls. " yeah right. The rampant fediblocking is nothing but just a wall. Mastodon just ain't go a valid alternative to big tech unless they seriously change their blocking and censorship policies.
@Apan Then go to the teams of the specific instances and not @Mastodon themselves. They can't control what instances block which other instances.
@Apan you have a very blockable face

@Apan @Mastodon

let me guess:

FSB disinfo isn't showing up as much as you would like?

@Apan @Mastodon One wonders what instances you're so upset they're blocking 🤨

Wouldn't happen to be the Nazi ones would it
@Apan @Mastodon you can always opt for an instance that is not blocking. That's the beauty of 

@Apan @Mastodon

A right to speak your mind isn't the same thing as a right to force other people to pay attention to you. You can shout on a street corner all you want, but the other people there have no obligation to give you a megaphone.

@Mastodon @Apan are you going to rage if I block you right now? ✅

@Apan @Mastodon

Are you one of those "free speech absolutist"? Then maybe the Fediverse is not the for you, if you want that sort of experience you should go back to any of the mainstream social media networks where you can have that.

@light @Mastodon Looking at these comments, it's pretty obvious that Mastodon users doesn't want to build bridges. They want a big wall, and suggesting to throw me on the other side. Such a welcoming and positive atmosphere. Wonder why Mastodon active users are plummeting...?

@Apan @light Some want some don't. You're always encouraged to switch instances if your not agreeing with how the team of an instance does things. You're even encouraged to set up your own instance of a Fediverse service like e.g. Mastodon, Misskey,...

There are also providers of "managed Mastodon" servers like @mastohost.

@gelbphoenix
Yeah he could easily do that instead of just stating plainly without elaborating on what he specifically finds objectionable, what specifically bothers him that much, what is being censored, but no he never says anything other than just there is too much moderation and censorship here. I looked up his older replies to posts where I only find this pattern that he just vaguely states that Mastodon has too much moderation and censorship that he finds problematic, but not much anything else.
I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that he's only being in bad faith, what other reason is to decry censorship and not say what is being censored in his view. It's just plain and simple cowardice to not even own up to one's conviction about what's being unjust, wrongful restraints according to their view. It just seems very much of the same playbook that people with hateful extremist views like to play, while dressing up their hateful, deranged, racist, bigoted views as just jokes to give them some plausible deniability while they mean those things seriously but don't want to full-on own up to, because that makes them to be seen as a terrible human being as they are.
Of course I can be wrong about my assumption and prematurely presume malice from their part when others refuse to elaborate on what censorship they're talking about.
@Apan @Mastodon lol, perhaps Twitter or a Meta product is best suited to you, then you can be as 'free' as you want and we don't have to put up with you?
Everyone wins, yayy!

@Apan @Mastodon

Everyone is entitled to free speech, but no one is entitled to a captive audience.

This is as it should be.

@Apan @Mastodon

It's better than just one giant silo. Being blocked from 1 or 2 servers isn't the end of the world

@Mastodon
They need to be called "Toots" on the official web interface again and not just third party apps like Tusky.
@Mastodon superb leadership here going non-profit and transparent. We're planning something similar for @TeamTopologies ...
@Mastodon sorry but this sounds shady as fuck. What is exactly transparent about the whole governance of these structures? There’s not a single word about that in the whole article. Sounds more like a Mozilla Foundation kind of thing, unsurprisingly so.
@Mastodon Seize the means of discussion!
@Mastodon Wishing you the best. Waiting for the day when Mastodon and Fediverse become household names, like Wikipedia.
@Mastodon what your are describing sounds a lot like steward-ownership! https://purpose-economy.org/en/whats-steward-ownership/
Is this something you would/could consider? Resp. what you were looking for?
What's steward-ownership? - Purpose

Purpose
@Mastodon anybody here answer anythin? I've been trying to get loops test plot verification email for weeks
@Mastodon Let's go Mastodon! It was a very interesting blog post, I greatly enjoyed reading it. Especially in light of the new changes in Metas moderation policies and Trumps election, I believe we absolutely need a free alternative based in Europe.

@Mastodon people on this thread are throwing around ideas to inspire more people to join: https://www.reddit.com/r/Mastodon/comments/1ihqyme/how_to_bring_more_people_onto_mastodon/

Do you have any initiatives planned to stir up new active users?

@Mastodon

These posts feel important, who exactly is posting them?

They are very corporate sounding, let's be people here.

@CartyBoston @Mastodon sure, happy to tell you that I wrote the content of the posts, and @renchap posted them on our main account!

@CartyBoston @Mastodon @renchap

I just want to say that I deeply appreciate that you take the time to answer these kind of questions and make these kind of posts so we can know what you are working at at Mastodon @andypiper

I respect and enjoy transparency, thanks.

@Mastodon
Thanks, Eugen for all your creativity and great success for #mastodon and #mastodonnonprofit .
@Mastodon oh finally. People on fedi have been trying to get eugen to do that for years.... At least as long as i've been here anyway... BDFL is a role nobody should ever have, imo. Good luck...