Fediverse Censorship

I've been thinking about censorship on the Fediverse for a while now, mostly because the more time I spend around it, the more I realise that the whole "decentralised = freedom" thing isn't really that simple.

People love talking about how the Fediverse is different from Twitter, Facebook, or whatever big corporate platform they hate this week.

"No corporation controls us."

"Nobody owns the network."

"You can make your own server."

Okay. Sure.

But then you actually join a server and suddenly you have an administrator telling you what you can talk about, what you can't post, which servers you're allowed to interact with, and sometimes even what opinions are considered acceptable.

So what exactly changed?

The corporation isn't sitting there deleting your post; it's an admin with a Mastodon or Sharkey instance.

And before someone gets mad at me, yes, server owners have the right to moderate their own servers. Obviously. I'm not saying every moderation action is censorship. Spam should be dealt with. Harassment should be dealt with. Illegal content should be dealt with.

That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the weird culture where any criticism of an administrator can suddenly become "harassment" or "misinformation" because somebody didn't like what you said.

I've seen people get told they're spreading misinformation simply because they questioned something.

I've seen political conversations get treated like they're automatically a problem.

I've seen people get blocked because of who they associate with rather than anything they personally did.

And I've seen people throw around the word "censorship" while simultaneously demanding that other communities be silenced.

It's exhausting.

The funniest part is that the Fediverse was supposed to give people more control over their online experience.

Instead, sometimes it feels like you just have to find the right administrator.

Find a server where you agree with the rules.

Find one where the moderators like you.

Find one where you don't accidentally say something that gets interpreted the wrong way.

And if you don't like it?

Leave.

That's basically the answer.

"Don't like the moderation? Make your own server."

That's technically true, but it doesn't magically make the problem disappear.

Not everyone has the money, time, technical knowledge, or interest in running their own server just because they don't like how another community is moderated.

And then there's instance blocking.

Sometimes it's completely justified. There are genuinely awful servers out there, and I don't blame an administrator for wanting nothing to do with them.

But blocking an entire server also means blocking everyone on it.

You could have someone who's completely normal and hasn't done anything wrong, and suddenly they can't interact with another community because someone somewhere decided their entire instance is unacceptable.

Maybe there's a good reason.

Maybe there isn't.

And that's the problem.

A lot of the time, regular users don't really know what's going on behind the scenes.

They just see that something is blocked and are expected to accept it.

I don't think the Fediverse needs to get rid of moderation.

I think it needs to get better at being honest about moderation.

If you're blocking a server, explain why.

If you're banning someone, tell them what rule they broke.

If you're restricting political discussion, say that clearly.

If you're going to remove someone's post, don't hide behind vague language like "community safety" when the actual reason is that you simply don't like what they said.

And if someone criticizes you, maybe don't immediately treat them like they're trying to destroy your entire community.

Sometimes people are just pissed off.

Sometimes they're wrong.

Sometimes they're right.

That's the internet.

I don't expect every Fediverse server to agree with me. Honestly, I'd rather they didn't.

What bothers me is when people constantly advertise the Fediverse as this amazing decentralized alternative to corporate social media while ignoring the fact that people can still abuse power here.

The Fediverse isn't automatically better just because it's decentralized.

It's still made up of people.

And people can be assholes.

Admins can be assholes.

Moderators can be assholes.

Users can be assholes.

Decentralization doesn't fix that.

What it does give us is choice.

If a server becomes unbearable, you can leave.

If you don't like an administrator, you can find another community.

If you want different rules, you can create your own space.

That's actually the part of the Fediverse I like.

But let's stop pretending that censorship magically disappeared because we moved away from centralized platforms.

It didn't.

We just decentralized it