- The last few weeks have been quite intense for the users of the Mastodon social network. After the campaign initiated by the well-known leftist tuiters of the Spanish State, several friends left Twitter and became part of the distributed social network. However, it seems that this massive change has created problems of coexistence. Many of those who have switched networks have not understood that Mastodon is not Twitter and therefore does not work with the same logic.
The members of the various Basque authorities of the Mastodon would have felt a bit of a stir this weekend if they had looked at the federated timeline. The reason: The appearance at the instance of a series of feminists of an anti-transsexual attitude, identified as TERF, an acronym in English for “trans-exclusionary and radical feminist” mastodon.social, who have held discussions with the people who were previously on this network with some hardness.
Mastodon, although apparently offering options similar to Twitter, has gradually developed its culture and is not as conflicting as that of the social network that has the emblem of the bird. Apart from meme jokes and the like that are common to these platforms, the tendency to collaborate with each other is more important than the passion to win debates; the figures of “like” and “bertoot” are not as important as in other networks and users share common interests. If the discussions get worse and you have to block another user, it has been done without much spectacle – without taking screenshots, without campaigning against anyone.
At least so far, that has been the general trend. Last weekend it was modified: two administrators of the Spanish users of the instance who published transfobas opinions mastodon.social closed their accounts and some of the oldest tuitsts, such as the “Red Profe” on Twitter, began denouncing censorship.
Specific rules
But can Mastodon, as a social network, censure someone? No. Because it is a social network that works through instances that federate with each other, each of them has the freedom to establish its own rules – for example, writing in Basque mastodon.eus and mastodon.jalgi.eus among other criteria. In a way, each instance is a kind of self-managed social center. Some very small communities, some larger ones, but all with their own regulations.
However, many of those who have migrated from Twitter to Mastodon have misunderstood. That’s why they would probably create their accounts mastodon.social in the instance, as it’s the largest “gaztetxe” in the network. However, the regulations of this body say that discriminatory content against sexual minorities will be eliminated and the accounts of those who broadcast such messages can be closed.
Do you not agree with this rule? You can use Mastodon through another instance or, ultimately, always create your own instance.
That is the real key to this issue. Some of the attitudes observed during the weekend may have a more political interpretation: in view of the profiles of the users who have denounced censorship, we see very common attitudes on the left of the twentieth century, among them, to focus their strategy in the fight against a central power center.
And despite the fact that in other networks is evident that point of power that is at the center of everything – we all have to be tenants of the elders of the Winter Palace on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter – in this decentralized network things can be otherwise, if everyone takes charge of building a common project to their own measure, rather than taking the administrator of the instance as “Other Boss” in Lacanese struggle against him and waste time.
However, many digital revolutionaries find it harder to start creating something than acting against someone.