* When you discover your Instance is blocked. *

After creating a new blog post, I prepare text for announcing it. This is posted at my main instance, and later I visit other accounts, search for that Status URL, and boost it from there.

In one case, I could not find the status on that normal search. Odd. What is going on?

A search for my user profile at Qoto did not bring ANY results either. It dawned on me that something was amiss...

On today's web magazine, live at : https://write.tedomum.net/rgx/when-you-discover-your-instance-is-blocked

@design_RG This is actually why I switched to qoto.org. They seem to want to defederate from anyone who doesn't believe in defederating from gab et al.

It's a bit sad and honestly one of the most offputting parts of the fediverse for me.

@pganssle, same story here (mastodon.technology → qoto.org).
For me, the alarm went off in December last year, when I shared a quote (verbatim, without commentary) from a Scientific American article, and ashfurrow@mastodon.technology replied privately:
“Spreading sexist misinformation violates our code of conduct. This is your only warning that this isn’t acceptable on this instance.”
After that, when I tried to migrate my followers, I discovered about his blocking qoto.org.

@design_RG, are discussions still at an impasse?
Just curious. To be honest, at this point I think it'd be best if mastodon.technology simply suffered the consequences of its own bad policies — I want to see the smart users migrating away from it.

@tripu

This is the story I hear time and time again. We did a survey and 58% of the people who came to QOTO came here because we have a policy of tolerance when it comes to speech, not oppression (aka free speech).

We see over and over again with the instances that do not espouse tolerance of opinions that ultimately the users mass migrate away, (thankfully mostly to places like QOTO) and what is left is an echo chamber of only the most toxic elements. Then they stay in their bubble and only really start trouble when they tell another instance that their intolerance should carry over there as well.

People also need to understand free speech does not mean "you can say anything at all and always be immune".. what it means is tolerance of opinions, an ability to share ideas in open forum without fear that one small mistep means you are banished forever. We make it clear that explicit racism and sexism isnt tolerated, and we have stood by that.

And our policies have served us. Not only are we in the top 20 most federated servers we also serve as an example to many other servers with instances replicating our ToS policy regularly and by having a good relationship with the tolerant minority represented instances throughout the fediverse.

The only consequence of our actions is a small handful of oppressive instances (both towards minorities and the general public) dont want to hear what we have to say. Personally I say we are far better off not having their noise in our timeline anyway.

I can say this, I am immensely proud of the open dialog we have at QOTO. We have by far the most respectful community ont he fediverse when it comes to how we treat others, and a mutual respect in our discussions and dialog I have seen no where else on the internet. As the founder of this community I hope to do what I can to make sure it stays that way.

@pganssle @design_RG