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+---
+title: "Internet Services Decentralization"
+date: 2020-10-21
+draft: true
+---
+
+The internet as we know it today is full of useful services, that millions of
+people use every day, all over the world. Most of these services are controlled
+by a few corporations like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple, among others.
+These are silos, walled gardens that want to keep you on their platforms for as
+long as they can. There can be no true free flow of information on these sites,
+which often have obscure and arcane moderation policies.
+
+Take, for example, the amount of time[^5] it took for Reddit to crack down on
+subreddits that violated its' rules. Quoted from the article
+
+> It is part of a broad shift away from the hands-off approach long embraced by online platforms that have claimed to be neutral in the face of whatever users publish.
+
+I'm not saying that Reddit admins or admins of any other community platform
+should be curating content. That responsiblity should fall to the users
+themselves. However, the admins can and should take action when rules are
+violated.
+
+The bigger issue, though, is that there is often nowhere else for their users to
+go. They don't know what else exists for them to gather and share.
+
+What to do, then? *Is* there any alternative?
+
+## Enter the Fediverse
+A (relatively) new development in this arena is the rise of what people are
+calling the Fediverse. It's a network of different hosts and different
+communities interacting over the internet. They use the same basic software[^1],
+but each instance is privately run. User accounts on one instance can follow
+accounts on *any other instance*.
+
+For the rest of this post I'm going to be focusing on one brand of software,
+[Mastodon][mastosite]. It's based on Twitter, in that users can write small
+posts in a microblog format. I've been on Mastodon since 2018, and I've stuck
+with the same instance[^4] the whole time.
+
+The most important aspect of the Fediverse to me is *data portability*. If you
+don't like the way your instance is being run, you can take your data with you
+to another one[^2] or set up your own[^3]. If tomorrow, for example, the admins
+of mastodon.technology decided to start banning accounts randomly, I could get
+an archive of my entire account and go to another instance.
+
+This kind of flexibility brings accountability to instance admins, and also
+provides an alternative to users who are unhappy with the moderation of their
+instance. There are thousands of instances out there, and it's easy to set up a
+private instance for yourself and possibly some friends.
+
+The Mastodon project maintains a list of public instances
+[here][mastoinstances]. Each instance on this list has to agree to certain
+policies, like active moderation against racism and hate speech. You can read
+the full Server Covenant [here][mastocovenant]. I *highly* recommend trying Mastodon out.
+
+[^1]: ActivityPub, described more here [ActivityPub](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub)
+[^2]: As documented [here](https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/moving/)
+[^3]: As documented [here](https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/run-your-own/)
+[^4]: https://mastodon.technology
+[^5]: From [NPR](https://www.npr.org/2020/06/29/884819923/reddit-bans-the_donald-forum-of-nearly-800-000-trump-fans-over-abusive-posts)
+
+[mastosite]: https://joinmastodon.org
+[mastocovenant]: https://joinmastodon.org/covenant
+[mastoinstances]: https://joinmastodon.org/communities