As those who enjoy the privilege of having not been already harassed and abused off of Twitter complain about having to leave Twitter if Melon Husk takes over, eyes have again been turning to open software alternatives like Mastodon.

If you don’t know me, I’m someone who did all the (mostly unpaid) work I’m about to describe in this post within the open source/fediverse sphere for the past 5 years, I’m here to tell you that the current landscape of open source social media is a hellscape filled with shitty white men that flows the darkest, most violent corners of the internet.

The problem is that if you want a social media platform to use where you won’t be harassed and threatened by a constant stream of scum and villainy flowing from these vast depths of depravity, you are going to have to pay someone for hosting, tech support, and most importantly moderation. The scum and villainy are in a lot of cases even harder to deal with in decentralized spaces than just a silo like Twitter or Facebook.

Unless you have a vast amount of cash to pay a staff of people to do this for you, or even just one person, it won’t happen. You are going to have to account for the livelihood of several experienced people to keep shit running like this.

I speak from years and years of experience that you could not even begin to imagine dealing with, both on a personal and professional level. You wouldn’t know where to start with how to account for these things. I doubt you have thought about being targeted with rape and death threats all day, or having to look through hundreds of photos of mutilation and abuse, or tracking hate groups, just so you can post memes and photos of your cat. Most people now think this work is something someone should do for free. For fun. As a hobby.

This shit ruins people’s lives. Ever read about the psychological damage that happens from this kind of work? Or the danger that comes down on the heads of your admin or moderator being known to these bad actors and being the line of defense between you and the big bad world of online abusers? No? Go look it up. How much would you be willing to be paid to filter through child pornography 8 hours a day? How much is getting death threats sent to your home worth?

Never mind that there is not any current software that can be run by someone without very specific tech know-how, and most of that software isn’t safe to begin with. Open source shit is nowhere near a safe thing to use the way you want. Because all of the open software projects that manage to get anywhere are those that have influxes of cash and free time, and guess which demographic has lots of cash and free time? And thus the software caters to that demographic, one that is hostile if not completely contrary to everyone else’s needs.

Funny enough, I think if enough people had migrated years ago and put pressure on these self-serving devs, better software could have happened. But we are well past that now, I and I think starting from scratch will be the only way. And that could take years.

Functional and safe software and online experiences have a cost, and you can’t afford it right now. I certainly can’t.

UPDATE: February 11, 2025

There is still no safe alternative to Twitter. While software on fedi continues to try and mostly fail because it’s run by fascist techbro fuckheads, Bluesky came in and tried to play with their own codes and protocols and crypto cash.

Bluesky claims to be decentralized, but is not. Yet? Maybe ever. It’s just a fun buzzword they want to use at this point. There’s no timeline on them actually making the thing work. Their moderation has already proven to be incredibly ineffective, and they have already bent the knee to known fascists and transphobes to remain on the platform. Which would not be a big deal, you know, if it were decentralized. But it’s not. So now you are stuck on a platform that hosts and promote fascism, they won’t kick them off their servers, and there’s no other servers for you to go to.

And then today, or yesterday, whatever timezones are, they announced they’ll be partnering with an AI company to help automate moderation.

I hope none of you are very attached to Bluesky.

And anyone with any miniscule experience in online safety and abuse prevention knows this is bullshit, and I will repeat my previous closing line: Functional and safe software and online experiences have a cost, and you can’t afford it right now. I certainly can’t.