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Myth: The #Fediverse™ Is Decentralised™

I run my own #Mastodon instance just for myself. An instance of one. What does that mean on today’s fediverse?

It means I’m on mastodon.social.

What?

That makes no sense!

Let me explain:

Since I have my own instance, surely I decide who I follow and anyone can follow me, right?

Wrong.

For ~1M accounts, Eugen decides. If he blocks my instance, a large number of people who follow me today will no longer be able to.

So I may as well be on his server.
#Mastodon #fediverse

reshared this

in reply to Aral Balkan

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
The same goes for other large servers.

Look at how many of the people you interact with are on the handful of the largest servers and imagine that just those handful of servers blocked your server.

Come, let‘s take this further…

Apparently Facebook/Meta is “joining” the fediverse. How nice of them. Now imagine that the largest instance is run by Zuckerberg. (Or <insert your favourite Silicon Valley billionaire here>.)

Imagine they become large enough to do the same thing to mastodon.social…

Rokosun reshared this.

in reply to Aral Balkan

RhiMG
RhiMG
• •
I'm no expert but I think I see what you're getting at.

Malevolent intentions will wreak havoc.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Jaime Soriano
Jaime Soriano
• •
this is what basically happened with XMPP. All big players joined, only to build walled gardens later and excluding anyone that had their smaller servers.

Aral Balkan reshared this.

in reply to Aral Balkan

~
~
• •
OR they get blocked by the people.. i.e. reddit style.. i.e.

NBGAF style.. END IT !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62VjlkIg29Q

/// can happen again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i55dafZQvFA

WASTE OF SPACE (///) avion de basura! END IT from Baltimore is a great band///

.. pa la come' mierdas! de pvtin. =plane of garbage/ for the sh!t eaters of pvtin "; p0pe, 3rdogan etc.. a5sad.. Nicolae Ceaușescu- Romania *
YouTube
in reply to Aral Balkan

Dave Winer ☕️
Dave Winer ☕️
• •
They don’t even support linking in posts on Facebook. How is the same company supposed to be part of a distributed network?
in reply to Aral Balkan

Desikner
Desikner
• •
If you develop in the public you give away control. It's by design.

1. You block anything related to Meta. You exclude everyone that use Meta.
2. You do not block anything related to Meta. You welcome everyone that use Meta.

Meta will probably embrace, extend and extinguish whether you choose 1. or 2. that doesn't matter, but with choice 2. you at least will have some people who will be signing up with an instance not Meta.

Regardless of choice, you'll end up with 2 separate networks.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Nico Jensen :fcsp2:
Nico Jensen :fcsp2:
• •
But the problem here are the users who join one server instead of spreading out, big servers can't really do much for that (Eugen can because of the app but that's something else).
The task is not to demonize Meta for the fact that they come to the Fediverse, but the task is to ensure that those who come additionally to the Fediverse, also distribute themselves and not all go to Meta, because there is star A or Influencer B. And then at some point you no longer have the problem that 10% of the users fall away because an instance falls away (block or delete).
in reply to Aral Balkan

Crazy Pony
Crazy Pony
• •
hmm, most of the people that i still interact with are on smaller, niche servers, or self hosted ones

Perhaps this instance here is already muted or blocked to reach the big servers, i dont know
in reply to Aral Balkan

Fabio Valentini
Fabio Valentini
• •
The problem is ... how big is "too big"? How should the governance structure for servers with > 1 users look? I don't assume you're suggesting that everyone runs their own "server of one".
in reply to Fabio Valentini

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
@decathorpe Not on the fediverse, no. It just wouldn’t be feasible with the current design. But on the Small Web, yeah. That’s what it’s being designed for 😀

https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/

What is the Small Web?

Updated June 19th, 2023 Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos. But that doesn’t mean you can’t watch it! You can download Small Is Beautiful #23 directly, and watch it with your favourite video player.
Aral Balkan
@Fabio Valentini
in reply to Aral Balkan

Brandon
Brandon
• •
what only time will tell us is whether the people will do anything about it?

Nice thing about mastodon is that if you're not happy on one server, it's not much work to move. The popular vote will win here bc if any one instance owner does something the majority disagrees with, they will migrate elsewhere.

Of course, they might not. But that's democracy.

Do I like it? No, because it is a risk that the majority is objectively wrong or immoral. Do we have a choice? Probably not?
in reply to Aral Balkan

Mehrad :kde: :emacs: :rstats:
Mehrad :kde: :emacs: :rstats:
• •
well, I don't agree with the part that fediverse is not decentralized. It is. BUT the effect you see is the direct result of people's behavior. Out of ignorance or due to historical reasons they almost all gathered in less than 25 instances. This is still not centralized, but it is not as distributed as we like it to be.

Lets replace mastodon.social with gmail in your sentence: "If gmail blocks your domain, you might as well create an account on gmail"

Now, how does it look?
in reply to Aral Balkan

Michał "phoe" Herda
Michał "phoe" Herda
• •
Dropping this 1M means that 90% of the Fediverse, according to https://fediverse.observer/stats, can still reach you. So, I call bullshit.

I hate Eugen's approach as much as you do, but please stop spreading FUD.

Fediverse Observer checks all servers in the fediverse and gives you an easy way to find a home using a map or list.

Fediverse Servers Status. Find a Fediverse server to sign up for, find one close to you!
fediverse.observer
in reply to Michał "phoe" Herda

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
@phoe And what’s the trend towards centralisation and the growth of the largest servers? And how will that be influenced by the entry of centralised trillion-dollar corporations with money to burn?

Let’s see in a year or two whether this was FUD or not.

I hope that unlike the web, XMPP, and email that this time, for some reason unbeknownst to me at this time, it will be different and I will have been wrong. Will be celebrating if that’s the case.
@Michał "phoe" Herda
in reply to Aral Balkan

Michał "phoe" Herda
Michał "phoe" Herda
• •
You're making a hypothesis about the future ("trend towards centralization" + "let's see in a year or two" above) and then claiming that they are true in the present (that the centralization already happened, see your previous post). This is bullshit in its purest form.

I've followed you for a while and I know your intentions are good, but making a conscious lie in an attempt to achieve your goals isn't going to work.
in reply to Michał "phoe" Herda

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
@phoe Yeah, man, I’m making a conscious lie, I’m terrible, blah blah blah. Wonderful. You really showed me. Congrats on choosing the right target to unload on. Go feel good about taking a dump on someone working to make things better.

Seriously, fuck off.
@Michał "phoe" Herda
in reply to Aral Balkan

Parade du Grotesque 💀
Parade du Grotesque 💀
• •
Organise the exodus of users from mastodon.social. Let us do a Reddit on this one instance.

Stop using Mastodon, the software, which is not very good and extremely resource-hungry, from what I understand.

Make the Fediverse truly decentralized again.
Unknown parent

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
@Howard Let’s ask mastodon.social and just the ten most popular servers to block your instance and see 😀

(They have the power to control whether or not you reach a huge percentage of the people on the fediverse. So they’re not just moderating their own servers, they’re moderating the fediverse. The larger they or others get, the more pronounced that effect will be. It’s about power differentials.)
@Howard Cheng
in reply to Aral Balkan

CartyBoston
CartyBoston
• •
Yes, very good, tens of thousands of people choose to have Eugen moderate for them, their choice, good for them.

I *just* need to be comfortable with my choice of moderators not everyone else's.

(my moderator is me, it's a privilege and I will figure out how to contribute to the community as a result)
Unknown parent

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
@mihira I’m saying that the larger instances get, the more power they have over the whole network.
@mihira🍉
in reply to Aral Balkan

Gustavo
Gustavo
• •
In the good news you don't need to use a app that only works on that server. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯
Unknown parent

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
@Howard Yep.
@Howard Cheng
Unknown parent

ራስ ባሪያው Rass Bariaw
ራስ ባሪያው Rass Bariaw
• •
@stevelord wrong; this is not about caring about followers. Instead, it's about arbitrarily losing the audience you nurtured.
@Steve Lord
in reply to ራስ ባሪያው Rass Bariaw

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
@RassBariaw @stevelord Exactly. It‘s about whether the people themselves get to decide whether they can follow me or whether an admin decides. And the number of people that that admin decides for is the power they have within that network.
@ራስ ባሪያው Rass Bariaw @Steve Lord
in reply to Aral Balkan

https://social.vlekken.net/users/joeri
https://social.vlekken.net/users/joeri
• •
The fediverse is absolutely decentralised. It's users simply make choices to flock together in bigger instances (with or without influence by bigger companies). But if mastodon.social blocks you, that information will be transparent en accessible. Anyone who disagrees will have the possibility to relocate to another instance.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Jaime Herazo
Jaime Herazo
• •
Let's be frank here:

So.
Fucking.
What?

None of us is here chasing big follower numbers or any of the big social media games, we're here to communicate with people. We lose a bunch of followers and are unable to connect to that big instance, we just carry on, the Fediverse becomes temporarily smaller, then carries on and continues to grow organically again. Plus you underestimate how many of us will move out of the big instance if it becomes not to be trusted.
in reply to Jaime Herazo

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
@jherazob Well, here’s hoping that‘s what happens. I guess we’ll see soon enough.
@Jaime Herazo
in reply to Aral Balkan

🌻 Thoralf Will 🇺🇦🇮🇱
🌻 Thoralf Will 🇺🇦🇮🇱
• •
Yes and no.

While your assessment is spot on, you miss one point:
Even with mastodon.social being that big, it's not the only big instance (and will probably never be).
So, while Eugen could block you from >1 mio. users, he can only do that for those.

Additionally, the users are still in power and can move to any other instance when they want to.

Both are fundamental differences compared to Facebook and Twitter.

Is it ideal? Not at all!
Is it better? Hell, yes!
in reply to Aral Balkan

Babu Menos 🎵
Babu Menos 🎵
• •
@Michał "phoe" Herda @karin Sorenby
in reply to Aral Balkan

Dave Winer ☕️
Dave Winer ☕️
• •
I like the way you think about this stuff. Very mathematical.
in reply to Aral Balkan

ራስ ባሪያው Rass Bariaw
ራስ ባሪያው Rass Bariaw
• •
@stevelord I speak from experience. I write about America's proxy war in #Ukraine (and #Taiwan and #Libya and a few others). I also write about the bigotry of American politics. One of my posts on Ukraine was deleted arbitrarily. Having learned my lesson, I posted another one about American bigotry which was also deleted. I was prepared and appealed with evidence and documentation. The owner of this instance reinstated my post but has since blocked me.
#Libya #Taiwan #ukraine @Steve Lord
in reply to Aral Balkan

Jakub Klawiter :mastodon:
Jakub Klawiter :mastodon:
• •
For what reason anyone can block your instance? There is no reason? So it will not happen.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Cam
Cam
• •
fair take, we effectively have highly personalised usernames while large scale flagship instances can exist. If a company with a huge R&D budget and a lot of devs already working on social got involved they could conceivably run their own fork on their own instances and eventually lock everything down again. Meta want to control not partake.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Nemo_bis 🌈
Nemo_bis 🌈
• •
Not quite my experience. Less than 10 % of my follows are from #MastodonSocial (fools!). Being deferated from them would be annoying but hardly devastating.

Far worse for me would be to be defederated from the dear people of (in order of frequency):

fosstodon.org
chaos.social
eupolicy.social
social.coop
wikis.world
#mastodonsocial
in reply to Aral Balkan

fabriek
fabriek
• •
My instance has banned mastodon.social and a couple of other large instances (with good reasons), and this is exactly the result. This is going to be so much worse when Meta joins.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Jeroen Baert
Jeroen Baert
• •
Side question: you run your server on masto host, or own hardware? I kinda want my own instance, but I don't have time for all the admin.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Stevens R Miller
Stevens R Miller
• •
That's all clear. But it does make me wonder. Given your last point ("I may as well be on his server"), why do you operate your own instance?
Unknown parent

Michał "phoe" Herda
Michał "phoe" Herda
• •
Sure, it's a normal process that's been going on forever - decentralization is confusing for people, people flock towards others, flocking generates power, power corrupts, and corruption causes protests and decentralization.

Still, I can't really complain about centralization if what I'm doing is exchanging messages between https://functional.cafe and https://thias.hellqui.st/ and https://mastodon.ar.al, which three instances have a total of 216 users and don't strictly need to care about the rest of the Fediverse.

If I can make a prediction about the future as well: we've survived centralized social media, we'll survive Eugen too. The tools are already here, we'll just need to wait for the Fediverse molochs to join the club of inevitably-crumbling-under-their-own-weight.

@aral

Functional Café

functional.cafe is an instance for people interested in functional programming and languages.
Mastodon hosted on functional.cafe
@Aral Balkan
in reply to Aral Balkan

Paulo Laureano
Paulo Laureano
• •
I also run my own instance, that a dozen people use daily as their own… just wondering why you would imagine that mastodon.social or any other “big” instance would block yours…

I have been running and participating in online communities for 40 years (since fidonet / bbs days). I have never been blocked by anyone. Honestly, why would your experience be any different?

Also, I have no issues with big tech companies joining the fediverse… you can silence/block their instance if you wish (something I would not do myself, but hey, it’s up to you as an instance manager).

Although I dislike Facebook / meta with a passion, and do not use any of their sites, I do not have a problem with the people that make different choices. Glad to follow and be followed by some of them.

I really don’t get it. I follow you, love reading your posts, but do not share some of your views. I respect others, with different opinions and perspectives, live and let live.
in reply to Paulo Laureano

aneel
aneel
• •
@pls I used to run my own email server. I did everything I could to make sure my server did all of the SPF and DKIM stuff correctly. I made sure I wasn’t on any public blocklists. I wasn’t spamming. But I discovered that some people would just silently not receive email I sent. Apple mail and Gmail addresses were common examples. There was no appeals process or even acknowledgment that my server was being blocked. So eventually I had to give up and move to a commercial email provider that was big enough that the major mail providers couldn’t just ignore.
@Paulo Laureano

reshared this

in reply to aneel

steve mookie kong
steve mookie kong
• •
@aneel @pls This was my exact experience too. I ran a mail server for more than 20 years and then threw in the towel because of these shenanigans.
@aneel @Paulo Laureano

Rokosun reshared this.

in reply to aneel

Freedom=Caring for Each Other
Freedom=Caring for Each Other
• •

Content warning: MASTODON AS MAIL!

@aneel @Paulo Laureano
in reply to Aral Balkan

Jagermo
Jagermo
• •
That is why it would be awesome to subscribe to public posts by an instance. It would also help with discover.
in reply to Aral Balkan

Chucho :gnu: :freedo: :guix:
Chucho :gnu: :freedo: :guix:
• •
While your point is completely right saying fedirverse is decentralized is wrong because the fediverse is federated. So the main risk is what you said you have to trust some admins. As someone else said before.

Is it the ideal? No
Is is better? Yes.
in reply to Aral Balkan

dick_turpin
dick_turpin
• •
And if, while on "His" server, he decides you are still not worthy of his association, those millions of users will still block or mute you. He could make your life even worse by NOT throwing you off his server but keeping you their friendless and ignored.

At least with your own instance, you have choices, using someone else's server you need to abide by their rules and potentially warped views. 🤷‍♂️
in reply to Aral Balkan

Arnel Šarić Sharan :verified:
Arnel Šarić Sharan :verified:
• •
I honestly think that blocking should only be done by users, and only in case of extreme spam/illegal stuff, admins get to say.
in reply to Aral Balkan

knoopx
knoopx
• •
@mihira very much like any other aspect in life, what's your point?
@mihira🍉
in reply to Aral Balkan

Ridin' with Biden
Ridin' with Biden
• •
is this bad faith in its purest form?
in reply to Ridin' with Biden

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
@NBAnthony2k No, it‘s just the design of ActivityPub and Mastodon itself as well as the policies of mastodon.social regarding not limiting their instance size or leading by example to create a culture of small instances on the fediverse.
@Ridin' with Biden
in reply to Aral Balkan

Ridin' with Biden
Ridin' with Biden
• •
you're right. I guess it's more of a strawman. Nothing you typed has anything to do with this being decentralized or not being decentralized.
in reply to Ridin' with Biden

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
@NBAnthony2k Right, I don’t have time for this – whatever you say, Mr. anonymous neoliber.al. Bye-bye now. 👋
@Ridin' with Biden
in reply to Aral Balkan

Mikael Gramont
Mikael Gramont
• •
Are you suggesting a particular direction to solve this problem?

Thinking about this, I think we need to think in terms of dynamic behaviors, not just instantaneous snapshots: if mastodon.social removes access to you for a lot of followers for whatever reason, at some point, the policies they set in place are going to upset their own users, so those will start to pressure the admins. Either the admins cave, or eventually they will lose users in a migration.
in reply to Aral Balkan

amd
amd
• •
ITT: a bunch of people thinking Aral doesn’t know exactly how this network works…
in reply to Aral Balkan

Throw Away
Throw Away
• •
@davew According to a quick Google search, that's only 1 million out 4.5 million - so not quite so 'centralized'.
@Dave Winer ☕️
⇧