The Importance of Federated Networks
TL;DR: Federated networks are important if you want to consistently keep posting NSFW content. The concept may be difficult for some people to grasp, but it may, in the end, be the only safe place to continue posting NSFW content on.
I’ve been aware of the existence of federated networks around the time I started using Tumblr. It basically started with Diaspora, and I’ve hinted about it subtly on my Tumblr about page. Which it seems most people don’t pay much attention to anyways. But when I originally learned about federated networks, I knew at the time, that it had an important place among the other social networking platforms, even if most people were instead using centralized platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and among others. I knew that federated networks were created by people who cared about their users, and wanted what’s best for their privacy. They were created and managed by people who wanted to provide a space for users to express themselves freely without a central platform being held hostage to government censorship (you can find plenty of examples of this from Stallman’s rant about Facebook.) At the time, I hadn’t specifically thought this would mean that people would want a platform like this to post NSFW content or loli/shota on, though at the time, and even now, it’s definitely possible. But at the time, I didn’t have any reason to believe that being on Tumblr would be a ticking time bomb, and still, I posted on other platforms, as well as Diaspora, because there wasn’t really any reason not to. In fact, posting on other platforms is the only way to be sure you’re not going to lose all your viewers because the one platform you rely on goes down, for whatever reason, tomorrow. But now, there’s no better time than to hop onto a federated network and continue posting NSFW content because in the end, it could very well be the only choice left.
Most people I’ve met who aren’t that interested in computing or free software don’t know what federated networks are. They haven’t been as enthusiastic about joining a federated network as I have because they don’t understand them. I don’t blame them, but the only way to be sure you’ll have a place you can continue freely posting your content on, besides being on multiple platforms is to join a federated network, where instead of one central entity controlling the servers, the rules and the entire platform with only a limited number of poorly paid employees to moderate users, many independent administrators run their own servers using the same libre* platform software, with their own rules and own choice of where the server is hosted. This has several implications. Users have more choice about which server they want to be on. If you don’t like the rules governing a server in one country, you can try a server in a different country. If you don’t like any of the servers, or their rules, you can even make your own. Of course you’d still have to learn how to do it and pay for the server hosting, or pay someone else to do everything for you, but it’s at least possible. On Tumblr and other central networks, this isn’t even an option. Tumblr and Facebook don’t open source their platform software** for other people to use. Secondly, all the accounts on a federated network can interact with each other. This means that if you choose to be on one server and a friend chooses to be on another, you can still follow each other and stay in contact. This is possible because both servers are using the same platform software. It is designed to work like this. Thirdly, because every server is operated by a different entity, and has different rules, all the staff members on one server need only be responsible for the content on their servers; not the entire federated network. This makes managing and moderating users much more managable.
On the other hand, in addition to most people being confused about how federated networks work, there are some other things worth looking at in a server or instance before you sign up for it. Firstly, you may be interested in an instance which is already full, which means the server admin might decide to close sign ups, and you’ll have to look elsewhere if you want to join an instance. Secondly, depending on the content and rules on the instance you’re looking for, your server may be blacklisted by other instances, making it harder for other people to find you. Conversely, your instance may blacklist other instances (particularly if they contain loli/shota or are too free with their rules), which means you can’t find certain kinds of content from the timeline of your instance. But all of this is very much a consequence of a federated network, where users are the ones who decide what content they want to have on their servers. It may mean that there are instances that promote racism or sexism. It can mean there are instances that contain other kinds of objectionable content. But this is what a free platform looks like; it will enable people to create servers for any kind of content you can think of. It need not be about racism or sexism, and often, it isn’t. You can create a server on a federated network for content that most commercial entities have no interest in supporting, but is otherwise not objectionable.
The freedom to choose an instance to be a part of or to create your own instance is a small price to pay for the freedom to post NSFW content consistently. I’ll understand that some people wouldn’t choose to be a part of such a platform, despite the benefits, but until something better comes along, it’s the only place I can think of where I can safely post NSFW content on without being told tomorrow that I have to pack up and go elsewhere. And I don’t care if people don’t follow me there; I’m going there because I think it’s what’s best for my NSFW content, and because in a world where we are constantly losing our privacy and freedom, using and developing free software like federated networking is the best thing to do.
*In English, there is some ambiguity with the term “free”, because it can mean free, as in beer that costs nothing, or free as in free speech. So we use libre to mean free as in free speech.
**Most notably, Facebook open sources React, one of the components that makes up their social networking platform, but it uses (at the time of writing) a questionable open source license that isn’t compatible with the spirit of free software, and the Facebook platform itself is still proprietary.