I'm still thinking about setting up a Mastodon account (in addition to, not instead of, our Twitter feed), but I'm hesitant about setting it up on an existing Mastodon server.
Some of them have Terms of Service that I'd prefer not to sign on to: I don't personally think, for instance, that any of my posts involve "racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, or casteism," "incitement of violence or promotion of violent ideologies," "harassment, dogpiling or doxxing of other users"; but who knows what those terms mean these days? Will someone decide that expressing skepticism about certain forms of immigration "xenophobia," or questioning whether transgender athletes should compete on women's teams "transphobia"? Will someone conclude that arguing for broadening the scope of permissible armed self-defense (or of permissible conduct during war) is a "violent ideolog[y]"? Will someone label identifying the name of someone who would prefer to remain anonymous, something that news outlets often do in the right circumstances, "doxxing"? Plus given how many people view a vast range as "structural racism," does it follow that people who defend them (and perhaps fight the premise that racially disparate impacts are "racism") are therefore themselves engaged in "racism"?
To be sure, I can probably in good faith just interpret the terms my own way; I don't think I'd be lying if I agreed to them. We auto-feed to Facebook and Twitter, after all; all of us have to reconcile ourselves to the world as it is in many ways. But I'd prefer not to, if possible, and I would think that in principle it would be possible here. (That's especially so since the blog has some funds to pay a reasonable amount for the hosting or similar services.) [UPDATE: I should add that, if a site simply says "Here's what we could expel you for," rather than asking me to agree not to post such things, I'm more open to that, especially since (as I understand it) switching Mastodon servers isn't that difficult, though still annoying. I'm more concerned about having to make promises about such things.]
