Also, besides choosing a server, how do you figure out which other servers that server "federates" with or blocks entirely?
You never see everything. There's way too much of it. Everything is going to be a selection. The question is who is going to do the selecting.
There are people right now having tantrums because they want their one-sided censorship back, and indeed, that's what's behind this latest drive to promote mastodon all over the place.
Nothing has actually changed on Twitter except the bluechecks' sense that they're no longer a privileged class.
Tons has changed on Twitter, including the laying off of half the company including substantial numbers in the Trust & Safety team. I'm seeing people who couldn't have cared less about the US's culture wars talking about leaving Twitter and setting up Mastodon accounts because they're expecting the platform to become nastier, more spammy, less reliable, and overall less pleasant to be on. Perhaps they're wrong, but it's wrong to pretend they're all doing it because they're having 'tantrums' and want their 'one-sided censorship back'.
The major concern I've seen regarding the blue checks is that it's going from being a system of verification (this person really is who they claim to be) to one where it just represents having paid a subscription fee without any real identity verification at all.
I have no doubt there is some hysteria going around, but it is entirely unfounded. If anything, you can expect fanatic lefties to false flag abuse to create that impression because that's exactly their style.
Those complaining about not being verified were invariably non-notable internet famous personalities, and I saw many of those complaints from people on the left too. Not everything was political bias, some people just were far less notable than they thought they were.
That you consider this to be about ‘fanatical lefties’ and ‘false flags’ shows you’re way too far down the rabbit hole and you’ve lost all perspective. Step back from the culture war nonsense and maybe spend a bit of time offline to touch grass.
and they aren't taking new signups. Soooo.... no idea.