I just realized my first encounter with Mastodon was 4 years ago when I signed up for a Counter Social account.
I had never heard about Mastodon previously & did not know about it then (this year is the first time I heard about Mastodon & the Fediverse).
I did sign up for a Counter Social Pro account & it seems to be partially Federated (you can look into it but not connect or follow accounts). I am https://counter.social/@darnell over there for what it is worth.
@strypey I tried following myself (as a test) but Counter.Social does not allow interactions outside of the domain.
That said it is a great group to interact with. The current theme right now is pirates 🏴☠️!
@Gargron @strypey Thanks for clarifying! I can “view” accounts on Counter.Social within the Mastodon app, but I can not follow Counter.Social accounts from any other instances.
I also did a search for the evil Mastodon instance full of trolls called Truth Social. Fortunately, their server never showed up! 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
I wonder if troll social is blocked via the app settings‽
@Gargron I suspected as much, which is why I @mentioned you in the post. Thanks for sharing your side of the story. Given that it was all a misunderstanding, it's sad that it wasn't resolved to the point where counter.social users could interact as full fedizens. Do either of you think it's worth someone from SocialHub reaching out to them?
@darnell It's a myth propagated by walled garden vendors that federation = spam or trolls. The truth is, lack of effective moderation = spam or trolls and there are plenty of centralized examples of this too. Robust moderation can be done on federated instances, as evidenced by the many admins who go all out to curate a fun experience in their slice of the 'verse.
@strypey @Gargron I concur, & Counter Social has numerous algorithmic defenses to squash spam & trolls.
However, the users there enjoy their walled garden. I prefer a solo instance which works best for me—at least on Mastodon.
I am experimenting with @pixelfed right now, although I am experiencing issues that might make me reconsider Tumblr & Instagram.
@darnell I found your counter.social account but I couldn't see any posts. Just out curiosity, I tried to follow it. Did that work? Since their goals are:
> No Trolls. No Abuse. No Ads. No Fake News. No Foreign Influence Ops.
... I guess it's not surprising if their interaction with the rest of the 'verse is fairly limited ;)