S.T.E.F.A.N. on Nostr: I've been here a few years and I'm still not sure if I have the concept of the ...

I've been here a few years and I'm still not sure if I have the concept of the Fediverse right. I have some mutuals who have been here a while and seem to misunderstand it too. So here's my attempt to rubber duck it:

I think when you come from Twitter/Bluesky/Facebook/etc to join Mastodon, you see it through the same frame of reference of a centralized platform and moderation. There are two important distinctions.

The first distinction is that while Mastodon is the most prevalent Fediverse app, not everything you see in your timeline originated from a Mastodon app/server. There are other microblogging apps like Misskey, Pleroma, Friendica, or dozens of their forks. There’re also other interest-specific apps like Pixelfed for photo sharing, Peertube for video, Lemmy for link aggregation. Or bridges from other platforms. So even though you may be using a Mastodon client and server to view and post content, other people might be using something else to post and interact with you on the Fediverse. In other words, it’s more accurate to refer to the ecosystem as the Fediverse rather than Mastodon.

The second distinction comes out of the first. The Fediverse is not centralized and therefore, neither is moderation. Anyone can host their own server and they can connect it to the rest of the Fediverse or be completely siloed, they can block other servers, or be blocked by other servers. Sometimes A instance can see B instance but B instance can’t see A instance. Your instance might block a server or permanently ban a user so you don’t have to interact with bad actors, but there is no way to permanently remove a server or user from joining the rest of the Fediverse. On the flip side of the coin, your instance can have more granular control over who/what is blocked instead of relying on a small centralized opinionated moderator team. Also, you can migrate to a different instance if you don’t like the moderation policy of the one you’re on.

Sometimes I see people comment on moderation, the nice vibe, how awesome the people are, or how there are “no nazis” on “Mastodon” or “the Fediverse.” The nitpick is that your experience is not the whole Fediverse experience, your experience is the unique combination of your blocks/mutes, your instance, server mods, blocked servers, your mutuals, and their mutuals. You might feel like you are in an utopian version of Twitter, but there are parts of the Fediverse that are way worse than Twitter/X ever was, with instances catering to former users of sites like 4chan and Kiwi Farms. If you didn’t know, thank your mods.

So basically, the Fediverse is not just Mastodon, and your moderated instance and friends are why your experience is enjoyable, not the Fediverse itself.

Note: I will edit this to correct anything that is wrong, so please feel free to clarify or correct any inaccurate statements.