FYI: freespeechextremist.com has been defederated from #MastodonAfrica following an actionable abuse report + a very clear pattern of unmitigated trolling on their instance.

@wogan Well the reason is obvious: It is because their account is on this unknown, small instance and not on #mastodonafrica… 😂

@eskomsepush

Welcome @toddespiel!

You are our #mastodonafrica user number 100! 🎇

Now I start counting again only the day we surpass #threads (that means next week or so).

@mastodonmigration @wogan

So who is saying there is no #growth in #SouthAfrica?

#MastodonAfrica

✅ mastodon.africa has been upgraded to v4.1.3, which was released by the Mastodon team less than 24 hours ago.

The upgrade required an nginx header update to further secure the system - if you see anything weird happening please let me know!

#MastodonAfrica #mastoadmin

FYI: #MastodonAfrica has been upgraded to v4.0.5 to address the security issue identified earlier this week. I'll now upgrade the instance to v4.1.3 so that we're up to date with the latest mastodon release.

Welcome to our new #mastodonafrica members from the last few days: @muraguri, @nintnin, @dmupdates, @kdb, @wox, @myusername, @maykhaled, @Norwegianinafrica, @Biltong, @tailucas, @Boinelomatlapeng, @TheeSquidboy, @lougammage, @zanjzenjizang, @kit, @takingnomorethreats...

We are having quite a number of new sign-ups lately, so even if we won't explicitly welcome all our new members in the future, we still will be happy about every single one who making this instance their home!

#MastodonAfrica is now your official source for all things @Biltong related!

@zorangrbic It is hosted entirely in #CapeTown, i.e. #SouthAfrica|n laws apply.

Since South Africa is a liberal democracy upholding free speech and civil liberty rights, #mastodonafrica should be in a suitable jurisdiction for everybody wanting to participate in a respectful discourse, no matter the topic.

@abshlimon

CC @wogan

@zorangrbic MSF is here: @DoctorsWithoutBorders

For everybody hailing from #Africa or who for whatever reason feels connected with this continent, there is our very welcoming #SouthAfrica|n #mastodonafrica instance: https://mastodon.africa

@abshlimon

Following multiple reports of harassment, the following domains are now suspended from #MastodonAfrica :

* poa.st
* beefyboys.win

@hnygd @malmorrow *definitely* report them up via #MastodonAfrica - if we see repeated harassment coming from the same server, it might also result in us defederating completely to protect our users. But we can't do that without the data :)

@malmorrow Regarding reporting: Please feel free to report these harassments.

On the #mastodonafrica side we can and will take action against such users (in this case I will look at it directly) and we can decide to act against malicious instances.

@GrahamDowns @hnygd @Enigmah Absolutely! And there's one last thing to mention: There are multiple timelines :)

#MastodonAfrica receives incoming posts from a big chunk of the Fediverse, and you can explore them on the Federated Timeline - effectively, an unfiltered firehose of *stuff* that you can scroll through to find interesting accounts and hashtags.

@GrahamDowns @hnygd @Enigmah They're even more important than you think:

* There is no fediverse-wide search engine (not ethically anyway)
* Even #MastodonAfrica's own search system is limited to finding hashtags only

In effect, people (almost always) won't find your stuff unless you consciously, deliberately tag it. This is very different from other social platforms, which use algorithms to push potentially-engaging content to you proactively.

Personally, I like the control this gives you.

@Enigmah Welcome!

I would suggest searching for hashtags that you are interested in (like #mastodonafrica) in your mastodon app/web interface and follow those who to you seem to be interesting.

Also, there is @mastodonmigration@mastodon.onlin, (s)he also lists from time to time accounts related to certain areas of interest.

@wogan

Welcome @Mareepsych, @MongeziBiya, @jusTGene!

Enjoy #mastodonafrica and the whole #fediverse. 😊

@hnygd As things stand, if someone signs up on #MastodonAfrica, rips and posts a bunch of stolen music, and the parent entity is hit with an infringement lawsuit, that's going to be the end of #MastodonAfrica 😂

I have money to pay for the servers, I don't have the money to pay for lawyers to fight claims in court to keep the service up. As things stand, this one mastodon instance is already a potential lightning rod for liability. Dunno if I can stomach two right now 🙃

@wogan I fully agree.

It would be great (but of course also a lot of effort…) if #kbin was just one (medium term) building block of a #SouthAfrica|n #fediverse with #MastodonAfrica, a locally hosted #pixelfed and a locally hosted #peertube… The latter two are (theoretically) mature enough already…

@mastodonmigration @wogan …and some more #MastodonAfrica statistics, showing growth continues.