> On the topic of moderation the very same issue is even more absurd. Some instances want uncontrolled free speech where some instances effectively are pure shit-posting instances which are completely de-federated from the most of the fediverse as a result. Other instances really like to control their content, where some popular ones such as fosstodon ban all languages than English as a result to allow moderation. There also is no real agreement on if larger or smaller instance are going to make the problem of moderation better or worse.
This is an inherent problem that centralized platforms try desperately to handwave away. However, sometimes handwaving doesn't work, and there's no lowest common denominator to fall back on which will reliably keep you out of trouble everywhere; for an example that probably won't get me flamed too badly here in this decade, is it Derry or Londonderry? Just calling it Stroke City won't work if the people on the site are sufficiently enthused about their discussion forum being Correct. It gets worse the closer you get to contested claims of genocide (do you ban the people claiming it was genocide or the people insisting it wasn't?) and discussions about who gets to qualify as human. Trying to be apolitical only works if you ban all the people from one side or the other.
It gets worse once you globalize, and you run into governments that are really, really keen on enforcing Correctness on certain issues, especially if you want to expand into two countries with mutually-incompatible views of which side of a given issue is Correct. Silence is not always an option. At that point, decentralization is the only solution.
This is an inherent problem that centralized platforms try desperately to handwave away. However, sometimes handwaving doesn't work, and there's no lowest common denominator to fall back on which will reliably keep you out of trouble everywhere; for an example that probably won't get me flamed too badly here in this decade, is it Derry or Londonderry? Just calling it Stroke City won't work if the people on the site are sufficiently enthused about their discussion forum being Correct. It gets worse the closer you get to contested claims of genocide (do you ban the people claiming it was genocide or the people insisting it wasn't?) and discussions about who gets to qualify as human. Trying to be apolitical only works if you ban all the people from one side or the other.
It gets worse once you globalize, and you run into governments that are really, really keen on enforcing Correctness on certain issues, especially if you want to expand into two countries with mutually-incompatible views of which side of a given issue is Correct. Silence is not always an option. At that point, decentralization is the only solution.