Very resonable (imo) response from Gargron (lead developer of Mastodon):
I’ve forwarded your question to our legal help and will provide an answer as soon as they give it to me. What you must understand is that our lawyers don’t have experience with federated platforms, and we don’t have experience with law, so we meet somewhere in the middle. Meta presumably has an in-house legal team that can really embed themselves in the problem area; our lawyers are external and pro-bono and rely on us to correctly explain the requirements and community feedback. The draft has been around for something like a year and none of the community members pointed out this issue until now. I’ll add one thing:
“My assumption, {… shortened for brevity …} is that when you post content it gets mirrored elsewhere, and this continues until a deletion notice is federated. So I’d assume if an instance somewhere mirrors my content they can’t get in trouble for it, and I’d also assume that if there is a deletion or maybe a block and a reasonable interpretation of the protocol would say that the content should be removed, I could send them a takedown and at that point they’d have to honor it.”
The goal of the terms is to make assumptions like this explicit, because assumptions are risky both sides. Just because luckily there were no frivolous lawsuits around this so far doesn’t mean there isn’t a risk of one.
Cory has had a much more calm response on a fediverse post, offering to reach out to the EFF’s lawyers for assistance in drafting a better ToS for Mastodon, and other experienced lawyers have offered help also. Amongst the usual negativity from some users.
I’ll be keeping my eye on the outcome but so far it looks positive.
Mastodon comms person here. We’re discussing how we go forward. The questions being asked are all absolutely reasonable, and we want to do what we can to improve the terms (that we do need to have in place) taking into account the feedback and offers of support.
This entire exchange is refreshingly wholesome.
Look! Adults talking!
Neat!
I’m still new to FOSS/Fediverse etcetc, but seeing someone just explain ToS like a human is so fucking refreshing.
Any plans of releasing the terms as open source, so smaller instances can adopt them?
The upcoming 4.4 release has a generator based on a template, which was this one. We will look into whether we need to put that feature on hold from the 4.4 release while we work through this, however, yes the idea is that there would be a template set of terms that any instance could customise and adopt.
Thanks!
Thanks for this extra context.
Thank you very much for the context, that makes a lot of sense and I’m glad this info can be part of the discussion here :)
Important to note that this is about the mastodon.social instance, not about all of Mastodon
Update: it seems, they’re taking the feedback seriously.
Mastodon@mastodon.social - We’ve heard your feedback on the Terms of Service updates for mastodon.social and mastodon.online, and we’re pausing the implementation date (previously announced to users via email as 1st July 2025) so we can take further advice and make improvements.
It may take us a moment to consult with the right people, so please bear with us while we do so. As always, we appreciate your patience and support.
Maybe that will push people to other instances
And/or (i suspect this is more likely) it will threaten to do so, and mastodon.social/.online will update their TOS to fix the problem identified in the bug report. Either way it’s a win for federation, in that migration is relatively painless for the user…
I’m also really appreciating the speed and depth of the response to this from the community (e.g. all the comments on the bug report). It’s cool to see!
edit: Also, Eugene’s response is reasonable and levelheaded - seems like there will be some TOS improvements eventually.
But will it tho? People still use Instagram.
People use the web channels that convert to cash. That’s what it is. Meta and their ilk have spent billions in marketing and persona research. They know what color makes you press a button and how to stimulate your brain into releasing dopamine when a certain product is mentioned or used.
Here’s some free advice to foss enthusiasts and developers.
Products don’t get sold because they’re better, they get sold because someone wants it. Not needs, wants. A person will put aside need for want.
Make people WANT your product and they’ll switch to it. And no, free isn’t a good enough tactic
I’m not saying Foss needs to sell its soul, I’m saying that those creators need to find a way to compete in that area.
Isn’t not doing that part of the draw of foss? That sort of UI/“engagement” is necessary for monetization but is not for foss.
A product getting “sold” is in direct contradiction to it being foss. That’s the viewpoint of money and enshittifiers.
Most people here are specifically avoiding those companies in part because of their “engagement” algorithms.
No! I apologize for not being clearer.
The point isn’t that foss has to be cash grabbing
It has to be likeable, lovable. Something that becomes familiar and comfortable as soon as a user starts using it, WITHOUT the nefarious monetization that the corps hang on it.
Think of it as your favorite cookies a friend bakes and gives out for free. Everyone loves them, their I. Demand, and their free
I hope I did a better job explaining my position. I’m not batting A thousand today in that arena lol
abbreviation wave !!r
Arbitration waiver*
The github discussion is interesting. I don’t think the arbitration clause is going to hold
Could someone explain why binding arbitration clauses are horrible? My understanding is that it keeps costs low on both sides as taking things to actual court can get expensive.
First, they make the proceedings private: there’s no public record of the proceedings or verdict, and even if you win there’s no precedent that others can use. The for-profit nature of the arbitrator (much or even most of whose business comes from corporate clients) represents a conflict of interest.
Second, they isolate the plaintiff: you can’t sue as part of a class action, so no lawyer can represent a group of similarly wronged people in exchange for a percentage of any verdict. This means you have to pay for your own lawyer, which many people can’t afford to do and even if you can it may not be worth it if the damage is small enough.
Together, these issues massively favor business and employers that include these clauses in contracts, as reflected in both win rates for corporations as well the number of cases brought against them versus in open court.
I know that avatar cause that user works on Analogue Pocket FPGA cores.
