@nicolaus

The median number of followers for people on Farcaster who have checked in at the Network School is 30. And an overwhelming majority of those people either have zero activity on their account for 6+ months or did not have accounts until the Network State acquisition, with little to no activity other since other than signing their code of conduct. These are not Farcaster users. These are not representatives of the culture that has grown here over many years. There are virtually no Network State citizens who are actively part of Farcaster. And yet these are now first class citizens of Farcaster. I do not begrudge the people who chose to call the Network School their home well before the acquisition. I don’t begrudge the ones packing up to head there now. I don’t begrudge the ones jumping onto Farcaster for the first time, and I hope they do become active members of this community. I don’t seek to “other” the citizens of the Network School who are just as swept up in this as the rest of us. But they have all opted in to that culture. That rule of law. Physically uprooted their lives and lifestyles to opt in. The rest of us, the ones who have been building here for years, contributing to its culture and its promise, finding solace in a safe digital space, woke up to the false choice to comply to this new code of conduct or exile ourselves. Many more were silenced without warning before they could even make that decision for themselves. Silenced by a code of conduct established by people who aren’t even an active part of this network. This screams of outside takeover, not peaceful transition of power. Digital colonialism, not democracy. The cleansing of the filth inside, rather than acceptance and coexistence of what exists and what remains. I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt. Remain cautiously optimistic. But the data doesn’t lie. How can these actions be in good faith of democracy when they are carried out by individuals that don’t even represent those they seek to govern? No amount of alternative clients will change that. Access to the network may be decentralized over time but what about power to shape the network beyond this nexus? Farcaster belongs to the people of Farcaster, and if this truly be a digital democracy then we have every right and responsibility to speak up and demand those in power do better, without fear of retribution or retroactive punishment.

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