I’m being told that the largest Mastodon instance - mastodon.social - is now hiding my profile.
One person telling me it’s because of German obsession with making up antisemitism where there is none.
Anyone who knows my work knows that I platform critical Jewish voices. My MA thesis was on Yiddish & Hebrew, I do memory studies which incl Holocaust studies, and I am co-producing a Jewish podcast by three radical Jews. I’m also a writer for 972mag.
So what’s up Mastodon? Am I too Arab for you?
@ayoub seems like comparing Nakba to Holocaust (both words mean the same in translation btw) gets you banned on mastodon.social:
https://old.reddit.com/r/Mastodon/comments/1g6iua2/mastodonsocial_is_heavily_censoring_news_about/
There is more evidence, but it's always hard to find because of decentralized and privacy-first nature of Fediverse.
This sucks :/
I don't know when, but I should definitely migrate off mastodon.social
Well, 2 months later, I still haven't migrated. And since I don't really post that frequently, it's not that important... but I looked into a few different alternatives, based on which instances I see used by people I follow.
I'll write down here some thoughts, so if me (or someone else) will return to try to make this choice later, I won't have to start from scratch
> No content illegal in Germany
Yeah, no thanks.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/1/7/why-is-germany-so-viciously-anti-palestinian
Their current society is deeply sick, and it's not only because of the AfD
https://xcancel.com/GMomurder/status/1854656030405537868
Their "Green" foreign minister also argued in favour of bombing civilians in Palestine
https://xcancel.com/Tarek_Bae/status/1845921059251581161
To clarify, it's not like I want to post stuff that would be illegal, but their laws have been weaponised against minorities, and while I understand that...
...an instance moderator cannot ignore the laws of the place where they live or of where their server is hosted, when making a choice we should be aware of which jurisdictions have been more or less heavy handed in respect to certain issues.
Next one: spore.social they seem to be mostly focused on climate issues, while that's a worthy cause, it's not something that I'd dedicate to (we first need to switch our economies' mode of production, for a better chance to fix climate)
This one seems to be mostly ok, they use a Fediblock, but they don't point out *which* Fediblock they use (there's not a single one anymore).
OTOH,
> We do not allow [...] misinformation, disinformation, and state-sponsored propaganda.
~Given what I see on their /explore page, ...~
PS: I later realised that the /explore page seem very similar across several instances, and shows content across all instances (not necessarily boosted there), so disregard this bit
https://social.treehouse.systems/about
I quite liked this one, but I'll have to keep looking:
> User behavior and content are required to comply with US federal laws and the Revised Code of Washington
https://tldr.nettime.org/about
I quite like this one. Lots of posts I cannot understand without translation.
It's run by an association which has been around for quite a while, so it also gives me more confidence that it would last longer than instances maintained by lone volunteers.
Uses Glitch-Soc
Provided by a cooperative with a clear CoC, funding mechanism, etc.
This gives me the most confidence that the instance wouldn't disappear suddenly. If I were confident that I'd post on Mastodon more than I'm currently doing, I 'd be very keen on joining the coop (which is a pre-requisite to get an account there).
Uses plain Mastodon.
https://toots.matapacos.dog/about
Of the ones mentioned until now, this is the one that I jibe with the most. Highlights from their rules:
> We do not reject violence on principle. Our adversaries will not be pacified by rhetoric. Be mindful about the legal implications of what you say though. Explicit threats against living people and organizations will be removed
> Don't get arrested. Don't get me arrested. 😎
OTOH, of all instances mentioned here, it's also the smallest.
Uses Hometown
One last thing, since I mentioned the concept of legal responsibility...
I checked where the last 3 Mastodon instances I mentioned (plus the Lemmy instance that I just joined) are hosted, and the places (in random order) are:
- Canada
- Norway
- Finland
- Finland
Make of that what you will
Elia Ayoub (he/him)
jan Anja();
berdario
