here's an article on this idea an its implications (people get socialized into feudalism/authoritarianism by the internet): https://osf.io/gxu3a/?view_only=11c9e93011df4865951f2056a64f5938
@anomaly If you read that article, regarding democracy it says "Governance systems that seek to inscribe authority within commonly agreed-upon rules ... generally through the capacity to transfer that authority to someone else.
Democratic practices can emerge within feudal technologies, such as when all-powerful moderators feel pressure to respect the values of their communities in how they exert authority."
Is this not the fediverse?
@anomaly Power paradigms are still present in democracies.
I think the feudalism doesn't apply to, say, Mastodon because everyone can start their own instance. You can exist here without a governing dictator however you can be democratically blocked by other users and instances.
@anomaly Also reporting offensive content grants a lot more power to Mastodon users than other social media platforms. On the bird site or Facebook you can report racist, sexist, transphobic things but those platforms do nothing about it.
@anomaly thanks! going to share this with some folks i know who work on these things