https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/04/mozilla-expands-its-mastodon-investment-with-private-beta-launch-of-its-own-highly-moderated-server/

Mozilla is expanding its investment in the decentralized social media ecosystem Mastodon with today’s announcement it’s opening up its own server — or “instance,” in Mastodon lingo — into private beta testing. The company announced last year its plans to create and begin testing a publicly accessible instance at Mozilla.social, with the goal of focusing on how it could help solve the “technical, experience and trustworthiness” challenges in a federated social space. Now, it says, it’s ready to begin onboarding users from its waitlist.

The company clarified that its approach to the social network will not be one that’s fully permissive of free speech. Instead, Mozilla says that declaring a platform “neutral”  is often used as an excuse to allow behaviors and content that are designed to harass and harm others. This puts its approach to content moderation in seeming opposition to others including, most notably, Elon Musk’s vision for Twitter.