The flip side of that is that instances large and small outside of the influence of the government can do as they please and people can use other means, like VPNs, to access them.

But they can use some other instance. With centralized platforms the issue is that they want to do business everywhere. Russia threatened to arrest Google employees in Moscow, for instance. Even without such threats, they want to have access to local markets. That isn't a concern for some instance in Ireland that is supported by donations.

The tech needs to be decentralized like Bitcoin. Bitcoin is untouchable as it is just so decentralized. You can go after nodes and miners, but you would have to go after all of them to take down any of its content. It is very resilient and social media could go the same way but people have to want it first.

Not the same problem but it would still be an issue

But it would give consumers control and transparency

Right now we have none. They see you, they realize they don't like you and they make the algorithm disappear everything you say

That is a problem. And I agree with others, it needs to be decentralized, that is step 1. The other things cannot even be attempted until then

Corporate driven communication will just not work. They are in bed with the fascist Nazi regime

Sure, maybe if that instance is hosted in that specific country. But an instance outside of it doesn't have to do shit. What is Turkey gonna do if they don't like something I post? Come arrest me? Fucking let 'em try.

Hard agree. Decentralization itself doesn't really work against censorship, you need an additional layer of privacy, or, more ideally, anonymity. Is there a way of running a lemmy instance over Tor?