@regendans thank you for your support ❤️

And people can migrate away from mastodon dot social.

I wish that was the case…the ugly truth is that m.s has 3M users, it’s by far the largest player on the Fediverse, and people are unlikely to move out of there. They’ve already behaved like unaccountable jerks before, they got backlash from people urging the accounts there to move, but they’re still by far the largest instance.

This Fediverse thing is decentralized only in theory, if the admins of the largest instance can in a blink of an eye cut you off from 30% of all the Fediverse users…

I have no way of knowing how many people I’d cut out if I killed my federation to mastodon.social

instance="your.instance"
# Fetched via lookup API
account_id="your_accont_id"
n_accounts=0
max_id=
while :; do
    data=$(curl -s "https://$instance/api/v1/accounts/$account_id/followers?limit=40&max_id=$max_id")
    if ! jq empty <<< "$data" 2>/dev/null; then
        echo "Invalid JSON received, stopping" >&2
        break
    fi

    [[ $(jq 'length' <<< "$data") -eq 0 ]] && break
    accounts=$(jq -r '.[].url' <<< "$data" | sed -r -e "s|^https://([^/]*)/(.*)$|\2@\1|")
    [ -z "$accounts" ] && break
    n_accounts=$((n_accounts + $(echo "$accounts" | wc -l)))
    max_id=$(jq -r '.[-1].id' <<< "$data")
    [ -z "$max_id" ] && break
    echo "Processed $n_accounts accounts" >&2
    echo "$accounts"
done | grep '@mastodon.social' | sort -u

Btw 22% is close to the total share of users that are on the main instance compared to the whole of the Fediverse - the law of big numbers is at it again.

A technology where a quarter of the users is on a single server can’t be called decentralized. Markets where a single company holds a quarter of the total share are usually considered monopolies/oligopolies. So far I tried to ignore the literal elephant in the room, but after seeing the consequences of their action to the visibility of my content I’ve decided that it can’t be ignored anymore. We’ve been repeating for years that mastodon.social is the Facebook of the Fediverse, with all the negative meanings that that implies, and that people should move out of it, but people are still on it and new accounts still register to it.

The server is mine, it runs in my home, but @Gargron has still a say on who I can reach out to. And if he decides to limit or suspend my account I still have to beg him to be able to communicate again effectively with those from Gaza who often ask me for help without following me and are overwhelmingly on the main instance.

I have to beg a single guy who has no clue of how the world works, and who bends repeatedly to Zionist pressures, not to limit my own account on my own server in my own home so that I can effectively support a campaign that is literally saving human lives.

This is humiliating and wrong on so many levels that I don’t want to have anything to do with this Fediverse shit anymore - despite having contributed to it.

Mastodon

The original server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit

^{Mastodon hosted on mastodon.social}

when you are involved in humanitarian efforts it’s also about reach - people from Gaza have overwhelmingly registered to the main instance.

Of course the average Fediverse user probably knows how to follow me even if Gargron decides to silence my profile. But non-tech folks in dire need who have just installed the Mastodon app on their phone, use the default instance without knowing what an instance is, and just try to shout out a cry for help, without knowing anything of how this platform works, won’t be able to see my replies.

This is not about metrics and reach, this is about a crime against humanity that @staff should be called accountable for.

@jab01701mid that's because you already follow me.

Limited profiles can be seen by those who already follow them, but not by anyone else - which also includes replies to other people's posts.

@jones @admin @Gargron for as much as I (strongly) disagree with the way the main instance is managed and how transparent they are about their decisions, I feel like I must ask to hold on the horses before mass silencing/defederation.

The simple reason is that the vast majority of accounts from Gaza are currently registered on the main instance, and muting m.s means muting their voices too (or new voices that may come in and may not be heard if the instance is muted).

This is a very unfortunate case of Stockholm syndrome where the instance that persecutes the most outspoken critics of the genocide is also the one that hosts most of those victims…

@admin

Obviously, @Gargron is saying nothing.

unfortunately they did, but via email.

They basically blamed me for block evasion, harassment, doxxing and legal threats.

Not the guys who blocked us just to keep lurking on our profiles and shamed us (and the victims from Gaza) on their timelines calling for blocks and defederation - behind our backs, without tagging us, and without even giving us a chance to respond.

Not the guys who kept throwing mud on Gaza Verified and called the victims scammers.

Not the guy who threatened to report me to my employer for antisemitism, and even left bad public comments about Booking saying “it employs a notorious antisemite like Fabio”. And when I asked for the details of that account because I wanted to proceed through legal means for defamation (because those comments, even though deleted by now, caused my HR to ask me questions) then it’s me throwing “legal threats”, rather than simply trying to leverage my rights as a citizen who has all the right to call accountable those who try to purposefully inflict permanent reputational damage.

These folks have not been limited (for years), but I have been limited.

Also, mentioning the Law of Return as a ground for colonialist expansion and calling Jews both at home and abroad to protest more, carrying both Israeli and Palestinian flags on the streets so they can’t be accused of antisemitism, is a ground for limitation or suspension on the main instance.

They are basically staring at our finger while our finger is pointing at a genocide.

After reading this, and after reading their staff bragging about the support that they’ve given to Gaza Verified, I feel like these folks have lost any inch of leftover credibility they could have in my eyes. mastodon.social is a crypto-Zionist instance that struggles to manage its own contradictions, and everybody onboard should leave that sinking ship. Starting from the accounts from Gaza currently exposed to regular harassment without anybody from @staff protecting them. Me and Aral can’t keep doing their work and expose ourselves on the gunfire of well-equipped armies of Zionist trolls. Either we do that, or we focus on helping people.

They can punish you even for quoting Omer Bartov on the NYT or Bertrand Russell if that doesn’t align with their sensitivities. And we’re supposed to care more about their sensitivies than our ability to reach out to people literally begging for food. Entitled privileged kids who live in their own fucking academic ivory tower and don’t even see a real-world emergency when you put it under their noses.

We are supposed to help the victims of an ongoing genocide, but not eradicate the ideological and political seeds that may lead to new occurrences of such acts of aggression.

mastodon.social is managed by morally bankrupt individuals who are accomplice in genocide and are actually obstructing humanitarian initiatives while bragging about them.

Mastodon.social Staff

2025-10-06 22:43:35

@rzeta0 Hi Tariq, we appreciate you reaching out about this and understand your frustration. We are deeply saddened by the loss of human life in Gaza and condemn the ongoing genocide perpetrated by Israel. We also strongly support Aral's work on Gaza-Verified.org.

@Gargron
i mention some accounts that i think may be interested in knowing about all this shit the mastodon.social admins have been doing and are doing

@guiscardo
@admin@stereodon.social
@gubi
@jops
@utentone
@admin@mastodon.bida.im
@samba
@lesion
@admin@mastodon.cisti.org
@rolery
@antanicus
@admin@puntarella.party

@kenobit
@ed
(admins of livellosegreto.it)

@admin

thank you so much for your support Joy, it means everything ❤️

As I said I’m not disappearing - you know where to find me whenever you need me 😀

I’m just taking a step back from the spotlights because of the pressure I’ve been exposed to - and this is not an easy decision either.

I still stand by your side and by the side of the people of Gaza and I will still give you all the support that you need.

I’ll just a step back from the spotlights though…