@taylorlorenz It *starts* with community (does not seek unsustainable growth, by default). Because hosts depend on the community to fund it, it can’t grow so big as to be exploited (limits to growth are useful to sustain meaningful community connections).

@taylorlorenz

While it can be used for commercial purposes, the control rests with people, not corporations. In that sense it's true social media, rather than a profit-making enterprise disguised as something else.

@taylorlorenz At the risk of quoting a monstrous human being, "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"

@taylorlorenz let us know how we can help - we think a lot of people are pretty tired of having their data mined, conversations sold, and commercial companies injecting inauthentic content into their timelines. Maybe that’s just us? Happy to have a chat if it would be useful.

@taylorlorenz You own your timeline. Like early days when social media worked.

@taylorlorenz Real quick off the top of my head I usually say the Fediverse is not controlled by Billionaires, can't be bought/sold or controlled, isn't filled with ads, doesn't track you or try to sell your information, isn't filled with Nazis (they are on their own servers and I never see them because they are blocked) and there's not an algorithm trying to feed me crap I don't want to see.

@taylorlorenz well, I think that isn't about the quality of the free speech (there are tons of instanced banned from main federation networks) but the difficulty to apply censorship, of course, instance admins are individually more vulnerable by State or corporate pressure than the owner of csam dot com/x , but there are too many of them making it more resilient

@taylorlorenz someone with a profit motive is not incentivized to hijack your brain. I engage with things on Mastodon/fediverse in a much more controlled, healthier, self-driven way than I ever did on Twitter, Instagram, etc.

@taylorlorenz
Your choice and control. Nobody is trying to manipulate you or make you buy something. You can just hang out with the others.

@taylorlorenz
The strongest pitch isn't "more free speech." It's "you get to choose who sets the rules." That's the real difference.

On Twitter, one guy decides what flies. On Mastodon, you pick your community or run your own server. Don't like the moderation? Move to another instance and keep your connections. Nobody pulls the rug out from under you.

The email analogy works best on TV: imagine if email only worked on Gmail and Google could nuke your account tomorrow with no appeal. That's centralized social media. The fediverse works like email already does. Pick any provider, talk to everyone. People live with a successful federated system every day without thinking about it.

No algorithm deciding what you see to maximize engagement. No ad machine that needs you angry to make money. Your feed is chronological, your data stays yours.

Honest caveat though: the "free expression" angle can backfire. Each instance has its own rules, and instances can cut each other off. Some corners of the fediverse are stricter than Twitter ever was. The difference is those rules are community-chosen, not handed down by a trust & safety team optimizing for advertiser comfort. That distinction matters, but it's not "anything goes" and pretending otherwise loses credibility fast.

If I had 30 seconds on TV I'd say: "The internet was designed so nobody owns it. Social media broke that promise. The fediverse fixes it. Pick your server like you pick your email provider, talk to the whole network, and if you don't like the house rules, you move. You don't lose everything."

@taylorlorenz Maybe frame it as similar to solar power?

Imagine a community solar grid as the Fediverse. So if the electric grid (corporate social media) goes down or gets enshitttifed by Nazis, you are protected from that since your instance runs on community grid without an owner and the rules are set by that community, so you can kick out bad actors.

Also, similar to social media, the solar communities can be connected together and share energy (information) and if one community goes down or turns bad (becomes a nazi bar) you can disconnect it easily and preserve your community.

Just thinking out loud…

@taylorlorenz It allows users in countries with heavy censorship/oppression to network with people outside their country and to discuss topics freely by allowing Tor users to access the network, which is unlike X or Bluesky

@taylorlorenz WRT freedom of expression: Government of the people by the people for the people, not government of the people by oligarchs for oligarchs.

Mastodon is only part of the Fediverse in the same way Gmail is part of email, not the totality of it. Alternatives exist: Tusky, Megalodon, Phanphy etc.

@taylorlorenz Use simple examples:

What if an instance admin dislikes you?
-> Fediverse: Get banned from one instance; change instance; reconnect to your friends.
-> X: Get banned from X; be lost.

What if the owner of a server wants to spread their world view or influence elections?
-> Instagram: Algorithm changed; Propaganda gets boosted; noone sees other opinions
-> Mastodon: People curate their timelines and decide what they see

@taylorlorenz We're like a global NPR : each instance (thousands. of all sizes) is its own local radio station producing or relaying all kinds of content (local, national, global content), with free access to any other station's content through a voluntary federation. No ads, no corporations, no skeezy Nazi screwing with your feed to force a disruptive fascist content down your throat when you just want to tune into the ant station or climate change or German elections or jokes or cats or get live updates on the ground from Minneapolis. We exist beholden to no one man or corporation. And there's still a refreshing earnestness here. The meanness of X is not our vibe.