Note: if the server you're on is banned, you won't be able to move to a different server.

I don't know if I understood you correctly, but I don't think this is true. I have not tried it but as long as you have your data you can always setup your own instance with it. Ideally you have a server backup but if not there is a script that can convert the ordinary Mastodon export (the one you can do as a regular user in the UI of any instance) into a form suitable to import into the database of your instance.

You can't migrate your followers that way, can you? Which is (arguably) for many people more important than the content of their posts.

You don’t own your followers. When you move they get a notification you moved and their following lists are adjusted accordingly.

Not when the instance you are on is banned or otherwise disappears and you use your exported data to "revive" your account on a different instance (with a different handle), which is the scenario I proposed above.

The only way to avoid that is to stand up your own instance. And that is the great thing about decentralized systems. Because you as a user have no visibility into the systems, finances, nor management of any of these platforms.

I still blog on a server I rent but the backup is hosted in a server in my closet. I’m fully aware that rental can go away any time. And that’s been the case for decades.

Maybe it’s a generational thing but it appears people assume these platforms owe them something. The TOS makes it clear they owe them very little. So you can be muted, banned or deleted at any moment.

I’ve watched many social networks disappear and end up in the footnotes of a Wikipedia article. Nothing about the internet is guaranteed nor permanent. Twitter nor Mastodon owe you anything.

I'm on my own Mastodon instance but should it get banned I'd pretty much lose my followers. I think that was the original point. Otherwise agreed, neither Twitter nor Mastodon owe me anything.

If you get banned on Twitter or any other centralized service, you lose all your followers. If you get banned on Mastodon, you lose your followers on the instance(s) that banned you.

But generally it takes a lot to get banned by most fediverse instances. You basically either need to be a nazi or consort with nazis.

There are, of course, instances that would ban you for less than that, but these tend to be much smaller and trying to foster a very specific type of community. If they'd ban you, they probably wouldn't follow you either.

If it disappears, you're right. If it's "banned" (not a thing, assuming you mean defederated) then you can't move to one of the instances which have defederated it. Any followers from an instance which has defederated yours will also be lost, not because you can't move them but because the block on their instance will automatically cause them to unfollow you.

The solution to this is to move to an instance which hasn't defederated from the one you're on. Worst case, setting up your own.

I haven't thought this through thoroughly yet, but I could not come up with a migration scenario where you could keep you followers. Your handle will change and as long as the old instance is banned I guess a redirect from there to the new handle does not work. So, fair point! I'd be curious what others think, maybe there is a way?

Mastodon supports user migrations that keeps your followers. It's pretty new and not supported everywhere yet, but it does work (I've used it) with the caveat that some followers on older software will still follow the old account at the moment.

It works by the old and new server "cooperating", so it won't let you move between two servers which won't federate with each other - in that specific scenario you'll need to go via a third server which both speak to.

The move appears to you as if your followers unfollows your old account and follows the new account, so they're all "redirected" to your new handle. E.g. you can see that here: https://mastodon.social/@vidarh

You indicate to the old server where you want to move to, and then to the new server where you're moving from, and the fact the old server will specify your new handle in your profile is used as proof when informing your followers instances of the new address.

If you do this, you can see mastodon.social returns a "movedTo" attribute for my old account:

    curl -H "Accept: application/activity+json" https://mastodon.social/users/vidarh | jq .movedTo

For everyone doing social media (semi-)professionally, followers are pretty much all that matters. That sounds like it gives server operators leverage against journalists and the like that happen to be on their server. They can move server, sure, but they lose their reach, that's ugly especially for smaller publications or individuals who can't easily hire staff to run their own instance.

Why would your server get banned though? It's not going to happen to moderated servers. If you pick some small, weird, or insurrection aligned server, that might be an issue. Otherwise, you're just stressing out about something that won't happen.

There is no "global ban" for servers. You won't be able to move to a server that has defederated the server you're moving to or been defederated by it.

But you can still move to a third party server. If you desperately want to move from A to B and A and B are defederated from each other, you can even do that by moving from A to C and C to A as long as both A and B are willing to talk to C.

What if your server that is run by a hobbyist suddenly shuts down without any notice? If they had an accident for example or they got hacked or whatever

If you're concerned about that, back up regularly, or pick an instance not run by a hobbyist, or run your own, or pay one of the commercial hosters to do it for you.

I love the moving of goalposts that's happening here. "Just pick a server", "you can always migrate" moves to "you can always migrate if you happened to have picked a server not run by a hobbyist". Which, BTW, isn't even a filter criterion on the often linked instances.social.

Also, you can't back up your followers.

You can't back up your followers, but as long as the old instance exits, is not banned and is cooperative you can move your followers from one instance to another. Yes, that's a lot of "ifs" and doesn't help at all if the instance you are on is already defederated, which was the point that started this thread.

I think Mastodon is a tiny bit better than Twitter in that, at least you have a chance to move as long as things are good. If that makes a practical difference, I don 't know...

I have moved instances, so it made a practical difference to me. I also follow a lot of people who have moved instances and in all cases I only noticed because they posted about it (and hence there are probably more who have moved that I didn't notice).

It needs improvements, such as the ability to move in spite of the old server (the ability to get at your private key so you or the new server can sign an assertion about the move with the old accounts key would be one option which would at least give people the choice of being prepared), and moving over the old posts (there are some stupid concerns about "faking timelines" which you can trivially do anyway, so I think this is a question of time to resolve that - it's not technically hard), but it already does offer significantly more freedom than Twitter.

> I love the moving of goalposts that's happening here. "Just pick a server", "you can always migrate" moves to "you can always migrate if you happened to have picked a server not run by a hobbyist".

There's no moving on goalposts here. I have not replied to you suggesting anything less than this previously, so there were no goalposts for me to move.

> Which, BTW, isn't even a filter criterion on the often linked instances.social.

So don't rely on instances.social if that is a consideration for you. If this matters to you, do your research. Joinmastodon.org does have a filter for "legal structure", but if you care about that you really should read the about page of your prospective server. Or run or pay for your own.

I simply provided you with a list of options if this is a consideration for you. It's your choice whether or not any of those options works for you.

> Also, you can't back up your followers.

Yes you can, though not from the default Mastodon UI. In fact anyone can download your followers list as JSON. What you can't do without support from the original server is to cause your followers to refollow you on the new account, and that is indeed a legitimate flaw that I'd like to see fixed (and it's doable - there are key-pairs associated with the accounts which would allow for signing an assertion about the account moving, and while the server need to have a copy of the main private key there's no reason for users not to be able to get a copy of it). It probably will be - the entire account move functionality is quite new and needs iteration.

you dont need to pick a small server like that man. that's what he's saying.

All servers can communicate. You're not locked into servers. This isnt an MMO... infosec.exchange, the one I use, isnt an exclusive thing. It basically just shows my name as: [email protected].

I can see and talk to mastodon.social. I can use hashtags and people from other servers will see it just like twitter.

The server you pick is just a name and a local server. If you pick a server that's dying, just move to the next one. You keep everything, it just changes from:

[email protected] to [email protected]. You wont lose the friends, just the host name changes.

If you have exported you data from the instance you should be able to set up your own instance with that data.

Well that sucks. But commercially businesses fail all the time. Sometimes you get a heads up and can plan accordingly. And other times it’s like FTX and the site is down the next day, after a major scandal.

The only thing you can do is own your data, running on servers you own, at a domain you own.

The internet owes you nothing.

> The only thing you can do is own your data, running on servers you own, at a domain you own.

No, that’s a failure of the specific protocol. Your identity could simply be a public key. This way it’s:

1) Tamperproof

2) Not dependant on any specific server

If your identity is "simply" a public key, then...how does anyone actually refer to you? By a handle? That's not part of a public key. An avatar? I guess you could generate one à la Gravatar from a public key, but those aren't going to be very memorable.

A public key is a way to securely and uniquely say "this is me". It says nothing about who you are, anything about you, what you like or do, your links to other people, or anything like that.

All that information has to be stored somewhere.

Most instances follow the Mastodon Covenant, whose promises include giving users three months warning before a shutdown.

https://joinmastodon.org/covenant