Tuesday 29 August 2023

Pitfalls for Universities Wishing to Join the Fediverse

Back in early July, Leonhard Dobusch published a call to action for universities to join the fediverse.
Cartoon (of a mamooth, but that’s close enough)Dmitry Abramov/Pixabay

Good call! Especially given that Mastodon (et al.) are anything but free from censorship concerns. Instead of dealing with a single, giant censor (Google, Facebook, Musx...), you get to deal with hundreds of petty censors in the Mastodon world (often in the form of “defederation”). You may also get kicked off any random Mastodon/ActivityPub server for “having the wrong opinions/beliefs”. 🙄

Plus, there’s the posts moderation issue. Zuckerberg turned into a Frankenstein after creating Facebook; Dorsey turned into a Frankenstein after creating Twitter (although he made an effort to get rid of the stigma by selling the monster to the feeble-minded Musx); Google turned into a Frankenstein after purchasing YouTube from its original creators; etc., etc.