So, the Mastodon experience so far has been great but I've been wondering how it can remain a safe and civil haven. I know there's no algorithm pushing outrage engagement, and no advertising but what's to stop bad actors taking over like every other platform?
@TheGasMan That's a great question! The answer is, unsurprisingly, a little complicated. I think it comes down to two things: individual action and cooperation within groups.
As an individual user, you have the power to block other individual users and even entire servers from which you don't want to see content. You can block the vast majority of bad actors by following the instructions in this post: https://qoto.org/web/statuses/109303687938265107
Now for group-level actions...
The administrators of individual instances/servers have the ability to set content and moderation standards for the communities represented by those instances. They can also block individual accounts on other instances, or entire other instances with which they don't want to be connected. The action of one instance blocking another is called defederation.
The ability for instances to defederate from each other is a powerful tool for limiting the reach of bad actors at the level of instances, but it also has the potential to fracture Mastodon and the Fediverse into a number of walled-garden communities that are isolated from each other.
In order to address this challenge, a bold and exciting new proposal has been put forward for democratic cooperation within a United Federation of Instances #UFoI. The conversation about what that would look like is happening now. If you'd like to be part of it, follow the hashtag #UFoI and the group @ufoi.
