I am currently reading the fabulous “Hayek’s Bastards” by Quinn Slobodian. It made me think about decentralisation in Mastodon (yes, the federated social network). And it made me think about the lack of a coherent progressive vision for the digital age. I will explain what that book has to do with both. But let’s go back to the political meaning of “decentralisation” in digital discourse first.
Decentralisation is a well-known trope in Cyberlibertarianism, as the late David Golumbia has already explained in his book of the same title (read Aline’s thoughts about it here). Even earlier, decentralisation was a central topic in another book by Golumbia, which was highly influential for me: The Politics of Bitcoin – Software as Right-Wing Extremism. There, Golumbia explained how the ideas of a decentralised digital ledger (blockchain) and crypto assets at their core express open contempt for democracy, solidarity and community. Decentralisation may have started as a valuable technical tool against centralisation and authoritarian control. It has turned into a dog-whistle for a much more fundamental skepticism against collectively governed infrastructures though. This development is linked to how privacy is often weaponised against collective digital infrastructures in general. In the mind of cyberlibertarians, all public-sector data processing is surveillance and all collectively administered institutions are centralised authoritarianism. Their answer is to individualise, to privatise and to decentralise all aspects of digital interactions. In other words: To turn society into an anarcho-capitalist reality where humans are not embedded into communities but deal with each other via market exchanges alone.
This brings us to Quinn Slobodian’s book and (soon, I promise) to Mastodon. Slobodian writes about how after the “defeat” of communism, neoliberals joined forces with racists and white supremacists in order to justify human inequality under capitalism. He thoroughly explains the ideological beginnings of what became known as “the alternative right” (alt-right): a merging of certain flavours neoliberalism and right-wing racism. Among the founding fathers of the alt-right was Murray Rothbard. His vision of the future was a decentralised world of privately owned, homogeneous and self-governing neighbourhoods. That sounds familiar, right? It sounds a lot like … Mastodon?
For those that are not familiar with the technical workings of Mastodon: It is a social network that does not function as a centralised platform (like Twitter, Instagram or – practically – Bluesky) but is much more comparable to email. All email-providers are connecting with each other over a shared protocol. To the people using ProtonMail, GMail or iCloud however, it does not matter what email service they use: Everybody can email everybody. And you can even host your own email server and still email everyone. Mastodon is similar. There is no unified Mastodon but a multitude of independent places that are all connected. You can have an account anywhere and still connect with everyone else. Mastodon is the sum of all decentralised and autonomously maintained places that use the shared protocol. I myself am part of a team that runs one of those countless places within the network where not only I but about one hundred active users have their profiles. Mastodon to me is great. I actively try to improve it, e.g. by helping to make it compliant with European data protection regulation. Mastodon is one of the few examples of digital services that work and actively defy the temptations of profit and commercialisation. This text is not a critique of Mastodon. It is, however, a critique of some of the underlying ideologies that are reproduced by Mastodon.
Just like in the dreams of Murray Rothbard, Mastodon is a digital world of privatised neighbourhoods. Mastodon appears like a community but on a technical level it is a patchwork of independent places under the rule of their respective admins. Mastodon is clearly suffering from this. Reports of unchecked racism, queer-hate and male-superiority are shared regularly. Users complain that their admins do not care, do not intervene or even accuse victims of not having a thick enough skin. In most cases, the only recourse is to move one’s account to another place in hopes of finding more benevolent admins and more protective content moderation. Being able to move one’s account to another place within Mastodon is usually praised as a feature. When it comes to digital safety however, it is not. It relegates minorities to a digital life on the run, hoping for safety in a system that has no mechanism to actually enforce it. How does this differ from how cyberlibertarians are working towards a world of privatised domination?
If the goal is solidarity and community, creating a world where little feudal lords reign over independent territories and negotiate the terms of the interchange of ideas can hardly be the best answer. I very much understand that in times of rising authoritarianism such an escape into decentralised resistance is alluring to progressive political movements. But this is a temporary fix at best. It is not a progressive vision for what comes after. Decentralisation without social institutions that debate, define and – when necessary – enforce fairness and equality is a euphemism for survival of the fittest.
Decentralisation without social institutions that debate, define and – when necessary – enforce fairness and equality is a euphemism for survival of the fittest.
Imagine Mastodon had a governance system where all users, admins and minorities were equally represented. Imagine this system intervened in the practices of some admins. Right now I can only imagine the Mastodon community to react with an outcry about such an audacious attack on their free and decentralised kingdom. This reaction would be completely in line with libertarian impulses that are so very present in all things digital. Cyberlibertarians routinely invoke the “free internet” as a vague supreme ideal that has to be defended against any kind of collective, democratic governance. Their ideology is based on private control and decentralised market-based exchange. It has no use for community, solidarity and participation. It is founded on contempt for democratic intervention, a belief in the unique nature of the digital realm and the superiority of those controlling it. These ideas are very present in the Mastodon community as well. Most often this is not the result of an active ideological commitment to libertarian or right-wing views. It is, however, very open to being instrumentalised by these ideologies and it is reinforcing them – willingly or not.
I can only speak for myself, but I deeply long for a vision of a digital future that has more to offer. And I very much hope for a progressive movement that dares to question the deeply rooted libertarian toxicity that still runs deep within much of the digital policy discourse. Sadly, this is also true for projects like Mastodon. This is a call for decentralisation in service of collective governance with a focus on solidarity, care and equality. Without such a focus, even progressive movements will inadvertently be part of those forces that speak of decentralisation but in fact weaponise it against solidarity.