As it should be -- by community dilution I was referring more to mind share around Mastodon and also the likelihood that Gab's community would soften its alt-right focus if it's able to get traction with a wider audience that may lean right but is not hard right.
I think this kind of federation for under-served audiences, combined with good productization, is a necessary step towards a future where fan-out 'microblogging' has the same place in our society as email. To me, it was quite a sight to see Congress speaking to half a dozen white men about how to decide what words people can say to each other over the Internet -- the absence of a representative for regulating "email speech" made it clear the importance of decentralizing these services.
It's hard to really claim Gab is alt-right when the truth is really more that it's alt anything. Remember the good old days of usenet, where alt represented all the usenet "channels" that basically didn't give a damn and weren't sponsored by anyone in particular? Sure you had your flame wars, but back then no one got banned for it. The advantage of services like Twitter is that whatever agenda Twitter wants to control, they control. The ability to control the narrative is certainly a profitable one. What was the quote? When the service is free, you're the product. Think on that.
Is it just a coincidence, then, that every time I refreshed this article, literally every single user listed under "who to follow" was alt-right, a white supremacist or a Nazi?
Or that the company itself has repeatedly made anti-Semitic statements?
Or that there are photographs of the founder making white supremacist hand signs?
I think this kind of federation for under-served audiences, combined with good productization, is a necessary step towards a future where fan-out 'microblogging' has the same place in our society as email. To me, it was quite a sight to see Congress speaking to half a dozen white men about how to decide what words people can say to each other over the Internet -- the absence of a representative for regulating "email speech" made it clear the importance of decentralizing these services.