Mastodon decentralisation & moderation: An alternative to Twitter?
Siddharth Manohar
Over the last month or so, Mastodon has been trending in India as an alternative to Twitter. Many privacy minded users have been setting up Mastadon accounts, and moving their social media musings to the platform citing better privacy and content moderation specifically around hate speech, misogyny, rape threats etc. — which are things people have been asking of Twitter.
The central benefit of Mastodon is that it is decentralised. This means, the decision-making is taken not by a central content moderator but by individuals/collectives governing their own “instances”. However, the benefit may be outweighed, or rendered irrelevant, by the fact that it remains a platform whose moderation is self-governed.
What may be instructive to remember however is the fact that Twitter has not always been the pool of abuse and “reply guys” it has now devolved into; it was once treasured as a space for interesting discussions with people from across various geographical and social locations with common interests — a purpose not entirely dissimilar to what Mastodon now serves, although the users recreating their existing networks on the platform, rather than building out the community afresh whilst on the platform.
This is owed to the commonality between the services offered by Twitter and Mastodon (posts on Mastadon for instance are called “toots”, potentially as a hat tip to Twitter’s tweets). Users are not taking to Mastodon because they see it as offering the same service as Twitter, but doing it better. They use it for the same purposes and start out seeking the same outcomes or substantively similar outcomes but with quantitatively better results — such as similar engagement, but without the trolls. While a different platform will tend to have different results of user behaviour, it is significant to note the specific context in which this cross-platform shift is taking place.
One is thus compelled to ask whether it is merely a matter of time before Mastodon too becomes afflicted with similar problems as the ones faced by users on Twitter and other public platforms. One element stopping this is the substantively different standard on allowing hate speech on the platform — for example, the founder has been quoted multiple times as taking a hard stance on western discourse involving extreme right-wing rhetoric. One may go so far as to say that Mastodon’s USP has been its advertised commitment to eliminating hate speech on its platform — it is only a little short of a promotional tagline at this point.
Moderation of this kind may be easier when the offending speech is very clearly agreed on as hate speech, and when the user count is still relatively low. However, the Indian user-base has recently demonstrated a decided divergence in what it is willing to consider hate speech — take for example the recently trending hashtags that indicate caste-related biases finding expression in Twitter’s moderation practices. Masses of Twitter users allege that moderation on the platform displays a clear misuse of authority to silence voices of protest from marginalised communities while turning a blind eye on cases of explicit slurs and abuse routinely employed by users from dominant communities. This implicit alignment by Twitter with dominant communities to allow prevalent forms of social abuse on its platform has triggered a counter trend of protest against its larger moderation practices, including the award of verification badges to fresh inactive accounts.
Part of this protest contains the mobilisation of a subset of users to take up usage of the Mastodon platform. The burden of moderation of such a community is close to non-existent, as the nature of such a trend dictates that the small group which has now moved onto the platform together itself constitutes a set of users with fairly aligned views on issues which may spark any kind of widespread, intense debate. The challenge will arise when the numbers are more substantial, specifically within its Indian contingent. Mastodon boasts a federated platform — decentralisation of power being part of its aforementioned unique offerings. But what happens when challenges are specific to a specific ‘instance’ of Mastodon, say the most highly populated Indian instance?
The ejection of Assam Police from the largest active instances of Mastodon recently attracted attention. The hypothetical of a different, smaller instance however could well vary in its behaviour, or follow suit depending on the predilection of the moderators — power is left in their hands as per this system. The platform itself remains value-neutral. The policies adopted by Mastodon encourage prevention of abuse and user safety, and the advantage it enjoys in terms of size ensures easier enforcement with a larger concentration of moderators. These potential challenges remain in the background however, and will demand further examination as they take shape.
