Wow... Just realized that Mastadon instances have the potential to become the ultimate echo chambers. I think that scares me to my core.
@soaklord I've seen this a few times and I wonder why it is that we find this so frightening. The early internet was just a bunch of like-valued nerds, and we never had problems with being in chat rooms about our particular interests. Why are we so worried about a social experience being selective? We don't invite threatening jerks into our homes, why should we do it on our screens?
@SuzanEraslan In the early days of the internet with ebaum's world and rotten.com and the like, there was an innocence (wrong word, perhaps naivety) that was present. Now the web can be a much darker place. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. I think you will see a divide in short order of instance mindsets. Federation moderation will become far more key than user moderation as this grows.
@SuzanEraslan With that said, I think that this will also allow for people to be the many faces they are to others. You can present your social.family instance to one group, your social.politics or interests or, creative thoughts to another all with your choice of instance.
@soaklord Someone said the other day that they are certain that the trolls and the Nazis will find their way in to start their own instances where "free speech is respected," but that that would actually be a good thing... Let them segregate themselves into their own basket and add those baskets to black lists for the better instances.