I’ve been talking to many people about the controversy with Reddit, why I left it and why I went onto Lemmy, Kbin and Mastadon instead. Some of my friends have commented that the control is still a problem as other platforms and it is all dependent on who owns the software, who owns the hardware, who are the admins, who are the moderators and which community or group has the most influence.
Who are these people that influence the most control on the fediverse? Are they Conservative? Are they Liberal? Are they Republican? Are they Democrat? Do they lean to the left of politics? to the right? or are they center? Are they even political? But also if they had to be would they easily or not so easily influenced?
So … for the ELI5 version of the question … Who owns the fediverse?
I don’t own this instance. But I run my own. I do so that I can control my access and am in control of my destiny. I have been going back and forth, pretty heavily, about opening it up come July.
I have worked in IT infrastructure/operations for years so I know the responsibilities, hence the hesitation because if I do allow others on it, it ups the stakes a bit.
Personally I know the costs. I am willing to accept them, and do not have any interest in increasing them to accommodate more than my instance can handle. Nor do I have much interest in policing and moderating people or communities. So if I opened my instance it would be solely so others can federate and join witb other instances. Drama someone caused would be dealt with my removing the drama.