Why I Left Mastodon

In January 2023 (see thread) I was looking for a new home after leaving dreaded Twitter. I got an invite to join Mastodon by a fellow X-Tweeter. She thought I’d enjoy Apobangpo, a server (what Mastodon refers to as an instance), because she and I shared a love of BTS. What the heck. I’ll give it a shot.

First off, I liked that it didn’t use algorithms. Ah, relief. It was independent and not like your typical social media interface owned by Big Brother (think of Facebook and Twitter). No ads, no bullshit. For the first year and half, it was a happy place for me but then I began to notice that nearly everyone was hiding behind screens. What? Listen and learn.

At first, I didn’t think much of the CONTENT WARNINGS! We’ve all seen warnings for movies, TV shows, etc. “May be unsuitable for children under…” Well, basically it’s the same thing. If you are worried about offending someone, you can hide your post behind a “screen”. Maybe a murder scene? Maybe a concentration camp photo? I get it.

But no. Things that I thought were innocuous became subjects of dispute. And after a while, it appeared that half of the posts I scrolled through were classified by the owners with CONTENT WARNINGS! Someone’s dinner photo (oh wait, it showed meat), a WWII plane in a museum (I kid you not), a particular song, an image of a church, yada, yada. You get the drift. It seemed that someone, somewhere, no matter the subject matter, could be offended by said content, so…

Wait a minute. Aren’t we supposed to be an open-minded culture? Aren’t we supposed to be impartial, unprejudiced, unbiased, neutral, and tolerant? To me it appeared we were going one step forward and two-steps back. To be honest, I began to feel offended by everyone being offended. I couldn’t deal with the pervasive attitude any longer, so one day I just up and left. I will not live that way and I refuse to hide behind a curtain. We can respect each other, but we shouldn’t have to apologize for who and what we are.