ETA: GOOD NEWS!
mastodon.social/@Mastodon/1147…
In reading an important discussion of the IP assignment in the new Mastodon.social ToS:
github.com/mastodon/mastodon/i…
I was GOBSMACKED to discover the new ToS has a "binding arbitration waiver," which takes away your right to sue, no matter how badly the service abuses you.
These are profoundly unethical, terrible clauses. They should never, ever appear in "adhesion contracts" (that is, contracts that you merely click through, rather than negotiating.)
New Terms of Service IP clause cannot be terminated or revoked, not even by deleting content · Issue #35086 · mastodon/mastodon
Summary Since it first opened, mastodon.social has operated without any sort of explicit IP grant from the users to the service, which is unusual for a social networking service. Today Mastodon ann...GitHub
We've heard your feedback on the Terms of Service updates for mastodon.social and mastodon.online, and we're pausing the implementation date (previously announced to users via email as 1st July 2025) so we can take further advice and make improvements.It may take us a moment to consult with the right people, so please bear with us while we do so. As always, we appreciate your patience and support.
Ten wpis został zedytowany (2 tygodnie temu)
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •No one, and I do mean NO ONE, should ever, ever, EVER agree to a binding arbitration waiver.
These are the most grotesquely unfair contractual terms in routine use today. The potential for abuse is literally unlimited.
Remember when a Disney World visitor died of an allergic reaction after being assured that her food order was allergen-free? Disney argued that her family couldn't sue because her husband had clicked through an arbitration waiver when signing up for a free trial of Disney Plus.
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Alexandre B A Villares 🐍 reshared this.
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •I am very shocked to see this in the ToS for the flagship Mastodon instance, promulgated by the Mastodon nonprofit.
To be clear, I think this is *much* worse than, say, requiring users of mastodon.social to agree to have their posts used to train LLMs. The harms of having your work fed to an AI are mostly hypothetical and relate to moral qualms.
By contrast, a binding arbitration waiver would literally allow the management of mastodon.social to cause your DEATH and face no consequences.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •I am trying not to be dramatic here, but this is a deal-breaker for me - literally. I changed dentists because I wouldn't sign binding arbitration. I changed solar installers because I wouldn't sign binding arbitration.
I could never, in good conscience, recommend that someone use a service that required binding arbitration as a condition of use - which means that as of July 1, I would no longer be able to recommend that people get an account on mastodon.social.
oscarfalcon
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Oh man... Does this mean I HAVE TO CHANGE INSTANCES??? IT DOES DOESN't IT!
Blast!
meek cynics
in reply to oscarfalcon • • •You don't have to, @oscarfalcon, but you definitely should: please see the Mastodon monoculture problem by @rysiek.
Cc: @pluralistic
Mastodon monoculture problem
Songs on the Security of NetworksMichał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
in reply to meek cynics • • •@cnx what's this about?
/me reads the thread
oh. oh I see. *sigh*
@pluralistic @oscarfalcon
pettter
in reply to Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦 • • •Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
in reply to pettter • • •@pettter it was published over two years ago.
Anyway, updated now.
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •And since mastodon.social is the flagship instance, which sets the moral example - and the workaday template - for most instances in the Fediverse, this catastrophically bad clause is likely to proliferate far and wide throughout the Fediverse, rendering most of this new, better internet unfit for use.
Please, @Gargron, reconsider this. It is a very bad look - and worse still, it's a very, very bad example.
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8Petros [$ rm -rv /capitalism/*]
in reply to Cory Doctorow • — (Internet) •When you see a monopoly brewing, kill it as soon as you can. Now it is late, but not too late. There are measures still possible to be taken.
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Good to see that @Mastodon has hit pause on the new ToS and are going to revisit the offending clauses.
mastodon.social/@Mastodon/1147…
Mastodon
2025-06-19 11:35:54
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