> "free speech" platforms like X are "technically" closed.

Musk boots off and/or limits distribution of people he disagrees with. I can't fathom how you think that's 'free speech' - it's the opposite.

> Federated platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky are "culturally" closed

I've heard that - what is your experience? Downvotes and exclusion? Are there more 'open' servers?

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dokyun 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> I've heard that - what is your experience? Downvotes and exclusion? Are there more 'open' servers?

Fediverse has plenty of servers which are "free speech" adjacent, which most Mastodon servers close off since its easier for them to police what their users can see than let them do it themselves. The vast majority of them do not run the Mastodon software, and feel far more "wild west" with all the shitposters. But if you want to talk with actual hackers and are into that sort of thing, it's fun times.

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orphereus 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Which servers are these fun ones? I would like to explore a bit.

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krapp 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Here is a page listing block lists, where you can find plenty of "fun" servers: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/discussions/18143

They'll include reasons for the block, which you should pay attention to.

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dokyun 13 minutes ago | parent [-]

https://fba.ryona.agency/ lets you browse instance block lists, sort by most defederated, who defederates the most, etc. There used to be FediBlock which maintained a centralized blocklist, but it doesn't exist anymore (gee, I wonder how something like that would end up eating itself?).

As far as reasoning goes, I think you can grasp how people would try and wield a tool like blocklists. A lot of blocks are merited, while some arent. I've had several blocks put on my instance from servers that I never even interacted with, for reasons that seemingly appear out of thin air.

	▲	krapp 8 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I'm not against blocklists, I'm very much for them, and I use them on my own instance, and a browser plugin for HN.

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dokyun 24 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

https://fedilist.com/ is a good instance browsing/monitoring tool maintained by the guy who runs fsebugoutzone.org, one of the more prominent and "fun" servers. He's a good dude.

You can browse by software, whether its open registration or not, allows tor, etc. You can glean statistics off of certain instances, which is really useful if you run one yourself. Most of the instances on the other side of fedi run the Pleroma software.

Have fun!