Just found this article, an excellent read!
"Over the past few years, Mastodon has become the model for a friendlier kind of social network, promising to keep out the hateful or ugly content that proliferates on larger and more centralized networks. Journalists hailed it as “Twitter without Nazis” and for years, it’s generally lived up to that promise. But last week, the social network Gab migrated to Mastodon — and Mastodon’s admins have been forced to deal with the internet’s Nazi problem head-on."
@salad_bar_breath 😄 I am glad you enjoyed the article too! And I found another really good reference from it -- will post a separate new thread soon, to give it more exposure.
Hint : it's a well argued analysis on why keeping communities small is the best way to make them productive and healthy. 😉
@chrism Very true, Chris.
I have read another article on how that group has appropriated another open source project's work, the bravo browser, and 'forked it' to use for their own interests.
The developers of Bravo were livid, but with it being open source project they couldn't bar this from happening.
Surprises me that people would trust such a sensitive tool as a browser, and use one provided (built as a binary, an .exe) by a group that could use that as a surveillance tool, with even less scruples than Google .
@realcaseyrollins Thanks, glad you liked the article. 
🔵
@salad_bar_breath @design_RG
1/ Well firstly there is a difference between pandering to the right wing and pandering to racists. And since there are other instances, like todon.no, that tend to cater to the left wing, for the sake of balance there should be one catering to the other side. (There's also a case to be made that Gab caters to everyone by allowing everyone to speak, but mostly right wingers sign up.)
@salad_bar_breath @design_RG Secondly, the upside of including Gab is allowing those on mainstream instances to confront the racist on Gab.
I admire your courage, if you enter the lion's den and intend to confront it there. Wow.
I did some stealth looking around the periphery, and what I saw dismayed me.
Primitive discourse, manipulation, dangerous things, in my opinion.
I have to leave now, have a morning appointment and so sorry to leave a discussion hanging. But I will be back later and hopefully we can resume.
If people were respectful to each other, differences of opinion could be no obstacle to civilized conversation.
Be back later, guys. Have a great day!
@design_RG It's a great shame that just because of the so-called "anonymity" of the Internet there are those people who choose to be obnoxious. The very same people wouldn't dare say "boo" to a goose if face to face!
@design_RG I disagree with its premise, but it's still a really important look.
@design_RG I did love that article! I also really really appreciate how it confirmed what I imagined about many instance moderators blocking hate sites and being resistant to incoming traffic to Gab.
I don't however, appreciate how the author ended the article with the dichotomy of the decision of Gab, I don't think there's any downside of discluding them or pandering to any heavily right wing user base.