Ever since Elon Musk purchased Twitter, Mastodon, a decentralized microblogging platform, has seen millions of new users. I've written elsewhere about the architecture that make Mastodon unique—specifically, each Mastodon server (known as an "instance") can choose its own content moderation standards, blocking whatever content, users, or even other instances that it wants. This leads to what I've called "content moderation subsidiarity" and allows users to tailor their experience while still generally being able to follow and be followed by users on other instances.
Mastodon thus represents a novel solution to the "content moderator's trilemma": the challenge of (1) running a social media platform with a giant and diverse user base, (2) using one set of content moderation standards, and (3) managing user dissatisfaction with the content moderation they experience. Centralized platforms like Twitter respond to the trilemma by accepting that user dissatisfaction is inevitable; decentralized platforms like Mastodon try to satisfy users by giving up on centralized moderation standards.
But it will take time—months, maybe years—for the millions of new Mastodon users to find, and in some cases create, the instances that best suit their needs. In the meantime, we should expect a difficult period of growing pains.
