Snippet: Main Character of the Day on Mastodon ☇

Matt Birchler:

Basically, there was a movement on Mastodon to boot Raspberry Pi out of the fediverse (and therefore off Mastodon) for posting about a new hire some people didn’t like (he was a surveillance officer previously) and when people replied saying they didn’t like this, the Pi account replied with such “escalations” as: […]

I’ve talked about this a good deal with some people on Mastodon itself, and some of them seem to think this is totally reasonable cause for getting the boot. Personally, I see this as a cringy day for Raspberry Pi, but the calls to defederate them over this I think are absurd and makes the whole of Mastodon look very thin-skinned. Just don’t follow them if you don’t like these posts, it’s not like there’s an algorithm that’s going to push them in front of you.

This has been my beef with Mastodon—I try to be a good citizen on social media, rather than knee-jerk or inflammatory, but most of the initial posts I saw were telling me how I (and other Twitter refugees) were using it wrong. Hugh Rundle wrote a post that covered that sentiment that was widely shared around that same time, also souring my enthusiasm. While I am sympathetic to the fears that the Twitter-ification of Mastodon is making it worse for existing Mastodon users, the whole tone made it feel that most people were unwelcome and that all Twitter users jumping over were monolithic, narcissists who only cared about likes and retweets.

This latest situation further adds to the general tone that there’s only one correct way to use Mastodon, and if you don’t fall in line or are an outlier from the general consensus of the loudest voices, you’re unwelcome. I hope that I’m wrong long-term, and that most of this is an overcorrection from what’s going on at that other site.