FT Alphaville closes its Mastodon server and reflects on why running a social media site is a bad idea, including due to reputational, legal, and security risks
Financial TimesBryce Elder
Context & Ripple Effects
When Twitter's ownership change sent journalists hunting for alternatives in late 2022, Mastodon's pitch was that anyone could run their own server — and newsrooms like the FT's Alphaville took them up on it. But the legal exposure Wired flagged weeks earlier, that instance hosts must comply with copyright and privacy law across every jurisdiction their users post from, landed on whoever ran the box.
Alphaville's shutdown is the first prominent media exit from that experiment. It also lands just as Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko, who has already turned down US investors to keep the platform a nonprofit, is positioning the organization to sell hosting, moderation, and support services to exactly the organizations now discovering the burden.
First-order effects
FT Alphaville's readers and staff lose the instance, and the FT sheds the moderation, legal, and security obligations that came with operating it — the same obligations Wired identified as a structural problem for any instance host.
Second-order effects
Other organizations that stood up their own servers during the Twitter migration face the same reputational-and-liability calculus Alphaville just resolved by quitting, which turns Mastodon's planned paid hosting, moderation, and support services from an option into the path of least resistance.
Third-order effects
If self-hosting proves untenable for media firms, the fediverse's 'run your own server' ethos consolidates around managed providers and the Mastodon nonprofit itself — decentralization surviving as a protocol while operations re-centralize, with the long-term user-experience complaints one 2018-era user documented still unresolved.
The trend: Decentralized social media is splitting into a protocol anyone can use and an operations layer only paid providers can safely run, with Mastodon's nonprofit positioned to sell the latter.
This is great: “We tried to run a social media site and it was awful” https://t.co/K7A7f560P9 https://t.co/ZhOYFRtLMs
@aallan
Alasdair Allan on x
For all the reasons we spun up the @Raspberry_Pi #Mastodon instance as single-user only just for the brand account, the @FT instance is shuttering. The are a bunch of reasons, but it's more-or-less down to; compliance, security, and reputational risk. https://www.ft.com/...
@wexler
Nu Wexler on x
The Financial Times closes its Mastodon server after discovering that content moderation and legal compliance are a hassle. https://www.ft.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@izakaminska
Izabella Kaminska on x
FTAV has shut down its Mastodon server citing compliance, legal and disproportional server costs. The last point is especially enlightening. While it didn't cost them $44bn to figure this out, I think it sort of proves Elon's point about Twitter. https://www.ft.com/...
@smdiehl
Stephen Diehl on x
This is an excellent piece. The FT learns first hand why tech compliance officers and sysadmins have such gruelling jobs. https://www.ft.com/...
@loudmouthjulia
Julia Alexander on x
Really fun, thoughtful piece from the FT Alphaville team on trying to run a Mastodon server (good innovation idea!), failing (alas), and not envying the fool who would want to own a social media site just because opportunity presented itself. https://www.ft.com/...
@heavymannerz
Franklin Jackson on x
@Techmeme With the possible exception of the server expenses, how is this different from ordinary city newspapers and their online properties? These considerations were always there if you took a few minutes to think about it. A few minutes more and you realize these fears are ov…
@pkedrosky
Paul Kedrosky on x
The naive creation of many Mastodon servers was never going to end well¹, given liability, capacity, and curation issues. Here is @FTAlphaville on winding down its brief experiment in letting people into the FT tent to piss out. #xp https://www.ft.com/...
@m_c_klein
Matthew C. Klein on x
“Lawyers are literally everywhere. There's probably one behind you right now.” https://www.ft.com/... <— the case against running your own M*st*don server, from @BryceElder
@katienotopoulos
Katie Notopoulos on x
I truly appreciate and enjoy a news outlet publicly talking through its experimental failures. This was delightful. https://t.co/pCJ7j8LprU
@jamesrbuk
James Ball on x
If you're based in the UK, do not try to run an online service. Parliament keeps passing horrifying laws that will basically only affect startups here, while leaving big tech untouched. Ministers will then give speeches about innovation and deregulation. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://twitter…
@anthony
Anthony DeRosa on x
I got a chuckle out of this since they're basically facing similar potential liabilities by having a comment section below this same article. https://twitter.com/...
@financialtimes
@financialtimes on x
‘A few months ago, FT Alphaville thought it might be fun to host a Mastodon server. Boy, were we wrong,’ Bryce Elder writes https://www.ft.com/...
@mshannahmurphy
Hannah Murphy on x
Go build your own Twitter, they said It'll be easy, they said The FT's Alphaville team tried to move to Mastodon. It wasn't pretty. https://t.co/ah7HDrtwr7
@carnage4life
Dare Obasanjo on x
Running a social media site is less a technical problem and more a content moderation one. @FTAlphaville gives up running a Mastodon server after getting a taste. Another blow against decentralization and everyone running their own server. https://twitter.com/...
@senatorshoshana
@senatorshoshana on x
Is that @mmasnick's music?? Really, content moderation not even at much scale (but also at scale) is a nightmare. That's to say nothing of security and other battles https://twitter.com/...
@shiraovide
Shira Ovide on x
The decentralized internet ain't easy. ..."It is therefore with relief and regret that we announce the shutdown of https://t.co/8fjVkD4Yqs" https://t.co/9vlRNhpHHc
@seanbamforth
Sean Bamforth on x
FT shuts its mastadon servers down. Interesting reading for those serious about running a social media site. https://www.ft.com/...
@smtuffy
Sean Tuffy on x
Seriously though, if you set up a Mastodon server as a Twitter alternative, you should read this @FTAlphaville piece and question your life choices https://www.ft.com/...