After several years of writer's block I finally had a longer piece published today:
https://redecentralize.org/blog/2021/01/18/centralization-is-a-danger-to-democracy.html

Many thanks to @redecentralize for carrying it, @tomasino, @L_etter@twitter.com, and Gerben for reviewing and editing it into shape.

The piece has also been published on #VSquare:
https://vsquare.org/centralisation-is-a-danger-to-democracy/

After the violent events at the US Capitol the question isn’t how monopolist social media platforms should wield their power - the question is whether they should have such power in the first place.

We should break down the walls of social media monopolists, regulate them, and make monetising toxic engagement spilling into public discourse as onerous as dumping toxic waste into a river.

https://redecentralize.org/blog/2021/01/18/centralization-is-a-danger-to-democracy.html

@rysiek

> Now, alt-right trolls and white supremacists are all but limited to a corner of the Fediverse almost nobody else talks to

You're seeing a fraction of the fediverse from your instance. This is the problem with huge block lists and instance wide bans: it creates terrible filter bubbles and echo chambers.

@djsumdog @rysiek Going to concur with this, what may seem like a small and isolated pocket of the network to you is more like a hydra with regenerating heads. Censorship in this instance is 100% a losing battle so you need to invest in other ways around deradicalization and meeting people where they are.

@allison @djsumdog oh, that we need to do also. But the fact that we can have such a calm and compose conversation about this without the alt-right folk derailing it immediately is a testament to how much better it works here compared to the walled gardens...

@rysiek @allison You're on mastodon.social. You can't see neckbeard.xyz, freespeechextremists, social.quodverum.com, and literally hundreds of other instances. quodverum.com isn't even "alt-right" they're just conservative. You're literally missing out on over 50% of the conversation depending on where you sit in the fediverse. I mean, it's okay if you're fine with your echo chamber, but recognize that it is one.

@djsumdog @allison I never said there isn't one. I only said I don't see a problem with that, at least not as much of a problem as I see with centralized walled gardens pushing alt-right content on all their users, because that drives engagement.