Decentralized Social Media’s Dirty Secret: Even the Architects Don’t Know How to Fix It
📷 Image source: techcrunch.com
The Utopia That Wasn’t
How decentralization became the next big headache
Yoel Roth, the guy who used to run Twitter’s Trust and Safety team before Elon Musk turned the place into a meme factory, just dropped a truth bomb: decentralized social platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon are a mess. And not the kind you can clean up with a few extra moderators.
Roth, who’s been quietly advising some of these platforms since leaving Twitter, says the dream of a self-governing, troll-free internet is hitting the same walls centralized platforms did—just without the resources to fight back. 'The assumption was that distributing control would distribute responsibility,' he told TechCrunch. 'Instead, it’s distributing the blame.'
The Moderation Black Hole
Who polices a network that’s allergic to police?
Here’s the kicker: decentralized platforms don’t have a 'they.' When hate speech or CSAM pops up on Mastodon, there’s no single team to call—just a constellation of server admins, some of whom are volunteers running instances from their bedrooms. Roth points to a recent case where a Mastodon instance harboring extremist content was reported… and six other instances chose to keep federating with it anyway.
Bluesky, which uses an open-source protocol called AT, lets users opt into moderation filters. Sounds great until you realize most users stick with defaults, and bad actors can spin up their own filters to game the system. Jack Dorsey’s team pitched this as 'user empowerment.' Roth calls it 'moderation theater.'
The Big Tech Paradox
Why fleeing centralized platforms creates new problems
The irony? Decentralized platforms are hemorrhaging users back to Twitter/X precisely because they can’t handle scale. Mastodon’s active users peaked at 2.5 million post-Musk—now it’s below 1 million. Bluesky’s invite-only model kept growth slow, but also meant its moderation never faced real stress tests.
And here’s where Roth gets blunt: 'You can’t outsource ethics to a blockchain.' He recounts a Bluesky debate over whether to ban Nazi rhetoric. Some developers argued the protocol should be 'neutral.' The resulting delay led to three high-profile Jewish users leaving. 'Neutrality always favors the aggressor,' Roth says. 'That’s Internet History 101.'
The Money Problem No One Wants to Solve
Running a Mastodon server for 10,000 users costs about $2,000/month. Who pays? Most instances rely on Patreon or sporadic donations. When an admin gets overwhelmed—financially or emotionally—they often just shut down, stranding users.
Bluesky has VC funding, but its open protocol means anyone can clone it. Roth compares it to email: 'SMTP didn’t have to turn a profit, but your social network does.' The dirty secret? Many decentralized platforms are banking on… becoming slightly less decentralized later. 'Look at Discord,’ one developer told me. 'Started open, now it’s a walled garden. That’s the exit plan.'
The Next Battlefield: Europe
How GDPR and the Digital Services Act force the issue
Here’s where things get legally messy. The EU’s Digital Services Act requires platforms to name a 'legal representative' accountable for content. But how does that work when your platform is a protocol spread across 50 servers in 30 countries?
Mastodon’s lead developer Eugen Rochko is now based in Germany, making him a potential target for lawsuits. Bluesky’s team is scrambling to pre-empt regulation by building tools for 'mandatory reporting'—which some users see as betraying decentralization’s ethos. Roth sighs: 'You can’t have human rights without humans doing the work.'
The Uncomfortable Truth
After two hours of conversation, Roth lands the plane: 'Decentralization doesn’t eliminate power—it hides it.' The people building moderation tools, deciding server rules, even choosing which other instances to federate with? They’re the new oligarchy. Just less visible than Zuckerberg.
His advice to users? 'Stop looking for technological messiahs. Every system gets gamed. The question is whether you can hold someone accountable when it happens.' Then he pauses. 'Actually, write that last part in bold.'
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