We’re taking another step in building a sustainable financial base as a non-profit. Today, we’re announcing new hosting and support offerings, tailored for larger organisations and public institutions. These enable organisations to own their social identities, on their own infrastructure.
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/09/service-offerings-from-mastodon/
@chris What would that court ruling be that would require such a grade of moderation? Would it still be impossible for native mods to meet it? Would such a ruling be a fair one if it becomes impossible for native mods to exectute w/o outside help?
@Scofisticated @Crazypedia @Mastodon The question will be if you have done enough to mitigate possible damage caused by operating a publicly accessible mastodon server.
There will be a service by the company providing the software to compare against.
(IANAL obviously and it will vary by country/jurisdiction.)
On other hand: If we go by the quality of mastodon.social’s moderation…
(1/?)
@chris
> You are now competing with other providers of these services
One of the 4 core pillars of enshittification prevention. Interoperating with competing software. That's 2. Full source code available under libre license, enabling self-help. That's 3. HQ in Germany, in a jurisdiction actively regulating tech services, that's all 4. Sounds like an ideal tech market to me.
(2/?)
@chris
> while you are the developer of the software too
Like WordPress, GitLab, Element, Loomio, Snikket, and innumerable others, who have served as good stewards of a libre codebase, while selling services based on it, to keep core dev sustainable.
Contrast this with Oracle and LibLime, who tried to ...
> use software and/or documentation to achieve that
... to ...
> keep [the] competition down
... with OpenOffice and Koha respectively, and got ruthlessly forked and routed around.
(3/?)
I'm less worried about Mastodon Inc. hosting services for other people, than I've been about them running overpowered directly. Which has lead to Mastodon being optimised for "enterprise" scale, rather than a scale which is practical to moderate with nuance.
(4/?)
@chris
> when the first lawsuits about lacking moderation drop
Mast. Inc. will be screwed. Their moderation is famously inadequate, due the aforementioned supersizing of the services they run.
> buying “proper” moderation will be considered the only responsible way to operate a server
The idea that anyone would buy that from Mast. Inc. under any circumstances is deeply laughable (see above).
(5/5)
You're not wrong that bullshit accusations of "inadequate moderation" is an attack surface enemies of the fediverse could potentially use. But I can't see how it logically follows from Mastodon offering a managed hosting service.
Again, Mastodon are in the EU, where the courts still enforce basic civil rights. I'd be much more worried if their HQ was in the US, where much more serious governments crackdowns on media freedom have been going on since Dubya, if not longer.
(1/?)
@chris
> The Wordpress / Automattic drama is an excellent example for _one_ of the things I’m expecting to happen
You seem to be presupposing that WordPress is the bad guy in their conflict with WP Engine. I've yet to be presented with anything substantial to support that view. It seems to be a case of shoehorning the judgement into the theory, without bothering to check that the facts actually fit either.
(2/?)
Again, you're ignoring Mastodon interoperating with other software. The WordPress case is totally different.
You're ignoring the freedom to fork. If WP Engine are the target of Bad Action, what's stopping them just forking WP and ignoring Automattic? Lots of people would probably jump on their fork the same way they're jumping to conclusions about who's at fault.
You're also ignoring the fact that both companies in the WP conflict have their HQ in the *US*, not the EU. Very different.
@Mastodon I’m not sure if that’s obvious to all: I don’t consider people who are making what to me seems a bad decision, bad people.
I just see new, conflicting business goals equating to risks that only can mitigated temporarily. For example by good people.
On the other hand: This too shall pass and nothing is forever.
@Mastodon
It’s Friday ! 😎
If you're not satisfied with the modetation you get for your money, you're welcome to pay someone else, or do it yourself..?
My point being that Jay Grant isn't paying for the moderation costs of my chosen server, but sees it prudent to start throwing insults for others not using (non-existent?) monies as they would wish.
In context of this thread, supposedly if Mastodon gGmbH is paid to moderate a third-party server, they know how much they're paid to do that, and allocate money appropriately, or be fired in favour of someone else.
And, you know, you can block a server.
@iju
I'm on a different server that I do contribute to financially, with significantly better moderation than mastodon.social
Perhaps you should learn more about the service you're on than showing up in other people's mentions with nonsense
Yeah, I know the problems involved with this server. It doesn't help that it's way too big, or that the monies sent toward its upkeep are divided with development of the platform as a whole. The latter being a problem that wouldn't affect the proposed moderation-as-paid-service.
Preferrably I'd fund the association without being on the server, but I haven't really found one that wouldn't make my life harder -- at least in my own mind.
@iju so you're just tone policing me to tone police me then? Fuck off into the sun, dude.
Mastodon is not competent enough to run its own software on its own servers, much less other peoples. The clowns who run it deserve derision.
@Mastodon @MastodonEngineering
Hi, great step! Congratulations!
Question: Apparently you use Fastly for @EUCommission's ec.social-network.europa.eu (and also for mastodon.social). See: https://hosting-checker.net/websites/ec.social-network.europa.eu
Have you also considered offering European-based providers like Bunny CDN or KeyCDN? For other options, see for example: https://european-alternatives.eu/category/cdn-content-delivery-network (@european_alternatives).
anthony
Mastodon
Celia Valdeolmillos
Vladimir Campos
Decenta Lyzed ☯️🇬🇱
🏳️ Blizwerk
Martin Seeger
Fell
Derek Caelin is writing a book
hes123
Christof Damian 💙💛
rua|rí
Health Is Wealth
Crazypedia won't Comply
Sco 
Carlos Solís
Strypey
JL Johnson 
Peace is Not A Fable 
Jay Grant 🏳️⚧️
Juho Mäntysalo
Makary
Peter_Panther
Jimmothy Baggins
Ali Jamal
DieMadColonizer
Bart Knubben
Ɩƚ