haxe11

Okay, your explanation makes sense. I still don't think saying that Mastodon would merge with Meta is even close to correct, as there are a lot of other instances besides mastodon.social and mastodon.online, but I at least understand the sentiment now.

FWIW I left Mastodon shortly after I tried it because I have the opposite opinion of you; he didn't implement search fast enough! I actually liked Twitter before that one guy took over. But I also understand those that are looking for a quieter, more private place.

Where did you read that Mastodon is merging with Meta? If you're talking about Threads being launched, I am pretty sure that all the drama was about whether any Fediverse/ActivityPub instance, whether it be Mastodon, Misskey, Firefish, would federate with Threads. Even Lemmy instances like Beehaw could choose to federate with Threads, but probably the compatibility would not be great.

That said, I do think it's important to find an instance with federation policies that match what you're looking for. If Beehaw wants to isolate itself and be its own thing in order to protect its users, I'm sure many people will appreciate that, perhaps even you! I'm on the fence whether that's what I'm looking for, myself.

There are other Firefish instances, though, in case one wants to use Firefish and also federate with mastodon.art.

There's Antennas, although they may not be exactly what you're looking for since they're in a separate location from your main feed.

I'm a big fan.

I like it and think it has a lot of potential, but at least with Lemmy I've encountered a lot of bugs. I want to also try Mastodon and have yet to delve into it.

I believe everyone has their blind spots, but yeah, it appears that this person is too big of a distraction for people to look past. Personally when I read anything I view it from the lens that a human with bias wrote it and that it could potentially be propaganda. But just dismissing everything everyone writes as "fake news" is something I don't agree with either. It's a tough thing nowadays, deciding who and what to trust.

I don't necessarily agree that the existence and effect of social media on young people is the same thing as the marginalization of transgender people.