"When a server moderators holds opinions other people view as problematic, the social cost of these views is partially extended to server users as well. See for example the account for fediverse streaming platform Owncast, which has an account on the Fosstodon server. Owncast says that they are getting messages that say they need to move servers, otherwise people will see them as Nazis. This blog post about another Fosstodon user explains a similar thought process, where it is rational for them to move to a different server, because they will be associated with the politics of the server moderator in question otherwise.
This behaviour has an impact on how people on the fediverse should find an instance they want to join. It turns out that knowing the political affiliations of server moderators is important, and that this is something that people should know about before joining a server. People will be judged for being on a server that has a moderator with toxic political views. As such, it becomes important for people to know this information beforehand: both that they will get judged for the politics of server moderators, as well as knowing what those political views actually are.
This is another indication of why the process of selecting a server when someone joins the fediverse is actually a challenge: important information that should impact server choice is not made available to users, nor is it made clear that this information is important in the first place."
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fediversereport.com
Fediverse Report – #114
Instance drama, with some reflection on how federation could be improved on the fediverse.
(Fediverse Report – #114)
