I’m not aware of what happen, could you shine some light onto it?
Having freedom of speech does not give you a right to someone else’s property.
Thanks for putting this out there. My wife and I migrated away from FB in leu of excellent alternatives like mewe.
One major hurtle we ran into was ,‘But everyone we know uses FB.’ Fortunately, this was an easy fix for us. So, we created and MAILED a family news-letter. (old-school style) to everyone we could to let them know how we were doing and what the kids were up to. There were pictures and notes and the usual. We ALSO print a QR code/website to our mewe page, if any of the so-inclined, would like to check out the current goings on.
It was subtle, but it has been working. The response has been positive and overwhelming. They loved getting actual mail from us, and a surprising number have been exploring mewe for the first time. (I’ve found that most simply had not heard of anything BUT fb.)
We don’t miss fb, the ads, the arguments, the confusion, or the ‘missing posts’. Instead, we enjoy the frequent phone calls, infrequent letters, and the one-by-one greetings on mewe.
All that to say this, “The move is quite possible, and word-of-mouth will always be one of the most powerful advertising tools available.”
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Believe me I would love to lock myself in a Trappist garden for a bit. I am a senior nurse so my (working) life is absolutely crazy since the early spring; this also affects my family life. Yesterday I received my Pine Phone UB Ports and it is such a beuitiful device; I was not expecting the premium look of the phone and the polish of the operating system. But I was too tired to play with it and I went straight to sleep to recover before the next working day. Hopefully I will find some time later in summer to play with my PinePhone.
I can agree with you that seniors are really lonely these days. When I visit my patients often I am the first person they let into their homes since the last 16-18 weeks. Some of them are crying as they are really lonely and while they have mobile phones and tablets to reach uout to other people in a long term the technology will not replace human contact. I just wish I could stay with each of them a bit longer but I cover the entire county in the south of England and the workload is not getting any smaller. I really struggle the see the light in the tunnel and think we will all end up crazy because of the Covid.
I’m only on Facebook for the marketplace these days. Anyone I actually care to contact I’ll do so by phone. If I don’t have their phone number I also don’t care about their political opinions, which is all anyone ever shrieks about anyways. Ol’ Facebook has become quite the roaring dumpster fire.
I hear their beer is excellent.
I don’t think they would let me in, if i announced that I came for the beer only 
In August I plan to have some time off work (Covid allowing, hopefully), so at least I will spend some time in my own garden with some Franziskaner Weissbier or proper English Ale
Several families I know do this in the form of a Christmas/holiday letter. It’s a great idea, IMO.
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I would avoid them. They are like others, for free speech until they disagree.
They came out with something called the Fediverse.
It is suppose to be a decentralized platform for free speech, that is until the site Gab joined it. They started doing what they could to block Gab from the Fediverse.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Fediverse. Mastodon.social has no control over the Fediverse or other federated servers.
You mean direct control., Did you read the article I linked?
There are claims the Mastodon people are flag brigading applications which are not blocking Gab’s domain.
Claims from Gab are far from definitive.
Seriously? It not even a claim from Gab
“Reacting to Mastodon’s restrictive move, Gab’s Twitter account said that the Mastodon community was “sabotaging their own app developers with mass flagging/reporting of any app that does not block Gab’s domain.””
Literally from the link you posted earlier.
The link you just posted has nothing of the kind, nor any indicator of underhanded store tactics.
Yet the Gab application was blocked from Google Play store, and the Apple App Store. I give Mastodon zero credibility as they are part of the Cancel Culture mob.
Ah. So a windmill.
It’s cool how Mastodon’s “free speech” gets zero credibility. Perhaps you don’t value “free speech” as much as you think you do?
Given Mastadon banned Gab’s domains from their apps and they went after them personally in comments it highlights a pretty aggressive approach to suppression beyond simply removing Gab from their tracker.
Their FOSS software appears to remain free-as-in-freedom though and doesn’t come with a block list by default which being such an easy addition practically makes that a statement against suppression.
It’s disappointing they’d get that aggressive and i’d argue the popular idealism they’ve adopted often harms and suppresses the just causes they’re seeking to protect (let alone harm to public discourse) but Mastadon the FOSS software still enables that decentralization from control.
Maybe the answer’s in the middle, recommend caution with Mastadon services but encourage use of Mastadon FOSS software? Take the good, be mindful of the bad? Not a lot of alternatives.
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Well said. Mastodon is FLOSS after all.
Re: popular idealism and discourse. There is that relevant XKCD comic strip.
Mastodon devs are choosing to exercise their rights with their platform and encouraging others to do so. They are NOT preventing others from using their software for whatever purpose. If that itself isn’t fundamentally respecting “free speech” I don’t know what is.
Edit: In regards to the technology used, I’m actually kind of a fan of Pleroma because it’s teensy tiny in comparison to Mastodon, federates to the same places, and seems to do the same things with far less resources.
Second Edit: I really have been peeping Pixelfed recently. It’s a FLOSS federated instagram clone.
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I think additional context is needed here, because Gab isn’t just community with loose approach for moderation, they were clearly created as a platform specifically for white supremacists, alt-right nationalists and similar movements.
So while I don’t agree with some moves coming from Mastodon team, banning Gab is perfectly reasonable one. You wouldn’t want users on your platform randomly stumble on racist rants when seeing global timeline.
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There’s a YouTuber named the LockPickingLawyer…
His channel is dedicated to showing people how to pick near every brand of lock and today he announced his new store for picking tools, many of which are designed to not only to be superior to anything on the market but in some cases gain entry that formerly required highly expensive tools or loud equipment.
Whether intentioned or not. He’s strongly promoting thievery by making it far easier and anyone predisposed to crime that comes across his channel will be more likely to engage.
Whether intentioned or not. Gab is strongly promoting bad ideologies by making it as easy as possible for their communication/advertisement and anyone predisposed to bad ideologies that comes across their service will be more likely to engage.
The question is what society do we want?
One that removes exposure to vulnerabilities, or one that perpetually inoculates itself against vulnerabilities? One that expects unthinking compliance with a communally established good, or one that provides the tools and sharp edges to learn what good is?
There’s obviously some compromise to be struck and the size of the service plays a role. What’s welcome in your local board game night should be different from who’s allowed to use Verizon to make a phone call.
I personally see no issue with Mastodon choosing to not feature Gab content or feature their service with any prominence. There’s also a decent argument for not listing it on their tracker… though preventing Gab logins in their app is leaning pretty far toward ideological security through obscurity, no one’s going to accidentally enter Gab login credentials.
I’m still recommending Mastodon, just with that caveat to keep an eye out. The language they’re using on their terms of service is synonymous with language used to suppress people in LGBTQ+ and various ethinic/cultural/racial groups from speaking about their own experiences, even experiences with progressive conclusions.
If this was another time similar to the Free Speech Movement we wouldn’t be having this discussion but speech is currently up for renewed discussion.
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Needing to perpetually inoculate means the disease isn’t being cured. I’d like the society which works to cure the disease and then moves forward without it.
I’m pretty sure that I could get myself kicked off of this community quite quickly if I were to start using the kind of rhetoric that brings us communities like Gab. I’m also pretty sure that would be awfully hard to get myself kicked off of this community if I were using the kind of rhetoric that brings us the Linux kernel Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct.
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