> No one controls Mastodon—or rather, everyone controls their own version of it. There are thousands of servers running the software, and each one chooses which servers it “federates,” or exchanges information with. Don’t like the users who belong to a specific server? Just block them.
> Unfortunately for some of the journalists who have joined the service, this mass-blocking (or “defederation”) approach is now being applied to them. A server that caters specifically to journalists was set up recently by Adam Davidson, creator of NPR’s Planet Money podcast. At last count, the server, called journa.host, had about thirteen hundred users, including some prominent journalists (and me). Earlier this week, a user of another network pointed out that about forty-five “instances” are blocking all content from members of journa.host.
> One journalist who is on Mastodon noted that there is also a cultural difference between the way people often behave on Twitter and expectations on Mastodon. “I’m seeing a clear signal that this is at least in part about norms and conduct,” he said, including “a legacy insistence on sharing your articles, live-posting breaking news, etc.” from journalists more used to Twitter. “That doesn’t fly here.” Despite attempts by Mastodon veterans to educate new users about these differences, he said, many journalists are “stomping around doing the same-old same-old.”