…therefore that’s why some of us in Trust & Safety are so eager to learn why infosec expert Florian Roth was suddenly booted from Mastodon’s infosec.exchange — because it might be the first big instance of Fediverse political bias leaking into community moderation.

Roth, a German (?) and without an apparent political axe to grind, has been arguing (and supporting other, noted, infosec theorists – Troy Hunt, FFS) in posts on Twitter/X that however much we might disdain what Musk is doing with his DOGE project, it might be arguably legitimate, or at very least not as “bad” as you are describing:

…and then suddenly *poof* his Mastodon account on the infosec.exchange community has apparently been pulled-out from beneath him, like a rug.

There is, simply, not enough popcorn available for the next few hours: the fediverse was meant to be the great saviour from the unaccountable whims of power as wielded by Very Large Online Platforms. The potential for free-speech irony is tremendous.

An appeal has been filed. We wait, with bated breath.

Updates

https://twitter.com/cyb3rops/status/1888706811819352260?s=46

[…] I only used that account to follow a few friends who left Twitter over a year ago, mainly Kevin, because I liked his attitude, memes, and valuable content. It seems they banned me for defending Elon Musk a few times. I do like him as an entrepreneur and agree with many of his views, but I always tried to stay rational and neutral. Getting blocked on Mastodon for defending Elon’s raised arm and recommending the Rogan/Zuckerberg interview on X is honestly hilarious. […]

Update 2

It’s been walked back. Still unclear why.