Show me an intelligent social media platform; I will show you a dead platform

Jorijn Schrijvershof’s decision to close the Mastodon instance toot.community, which he established in late 2024, highlights many of the difficulties facing instance administrators on the decentralised social media platform: Every day, I deal with spam, bots, technical issues, abuse reports, and user conflicts. Much of the moderation ends up being about personal disagreements rather than actual rule-breaking. As I wrote last week, anyone can set up a Mastodon instance if they want to, but the majority are labours of love, including Aus Social, of which I am a member. They’re not money-spinners. Unlike centralised social media platforms, such as Twitter/X and Threads, Mastodon instances are usually funded by their founders, together with any donations members might make: There’s also the financial side. I’m very grateful to everyone who donated, but donations haven’t covered costs for a long time. I’ve had to shoulder most of the expenses, time, and responsibility myself. It’s also a…