This Mastodon instance is operated by The Counterforce, an initiative to push back against the corporate capture of hardcore punk. No gods, no algorithms.

Welcome to COUNTERFORCE.SOCIAL

This Mastodon server is operated by The Counterforce.

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What is The Counterforce?

The Counterforce is an initiative to push back against the corporate capture of hardcore punk. Social media apps and streaming platforms dominate how we interact online, including how we share and distribute our music and ideas. The corporations that run these platforms extract massive profits from us, which they use to fund and facilitate exploitation, war, and genocide. Meanwhile, our independent and underground alternatives have eroded.

The goal of The Counterforce is to strengthen and grow the hardcore punk underground that still exists outside of this corporate capture. Rather than funnel punk into profit-driven walled gardens, we want to foment and encourage a culture that is autonomous and independent. This is not just a nostalgic, backward-facing project – we want to explore new alternatives for spreading hardcore punk online and offline.

Read more about the motivations and goals of this project: Manifesto For The Counterforce.

What is Counterforce.social?

The purpose of this Mastodon server is twofold:

1. To provide a home on the Fediverse for individuals and projects aligned with The Counterforce: regular contributors, distros, other zines and similar projects.
2. To provide a temporary landing pad for punk readers of The Counterforce curious about Mastodon and the Fediverse: an accompanying how-to guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse published in our zine directs readers on how to sign up for an account here. Please do not request an account here if you have not read this how-to guide!

Funding

This server is funded by donations from users and by fundraisers organized by The Counterforce.

Scope

Counterforce.social cannot and will not become a large general server for punks on Mastodon. We have neither the interest, nor the capacity to do so. We hope that punks will use this instance to become familiar with Mastodon and the wider Fediverse before either finding a suitable permanent server to migrate to, or being inspired to start their own local, community, or project-oriented servers.

Moderation

For our users

Counterforce.social has guidelines, which appear at the bottom of this page and which you agreed to when you signed up. We may alter these guidelines as we go to suit the needs and sustainability of the server. Try to follow these guidelines.

We approach conflict as anarchists. Please do not make extreme expectations on the server to mediate or resolve interpersonal conflict. We wish to minimize harm, and we seek to destroy domination, oppression and exploitation broadly. But we also believe all but the most extreme conflict can be resolved better within a community than by appealing to a higher authority to step in.

Mastodon offers numerous features and options for dealing with unwanted content. Please consult the documentation.

If you encounter an account on this server who is breaking our guidelines, or harassing or harming you, please make a report.

Likewise, if you encounter a account from another server that is spam, causing harm or harassing others, or otherwise seems to be potentially dangerous or harmful to our users, then similarly please make a report.

We will suspend (block) other instances that are either full of such accounts, or who fail to moderate bad actors on their servers.

For other users/server moderators

If you are encountering users from counterforce.social elsewhere on the Fediverse, please keep in mind these are likely new users. This is not an open-registration server, and we endeavour to ensure that new users have read our how-to guide to become oriented and join with good intentions, but we won't always be successful. Please be patient with our users as they explore the Fediverse and grow accustomed to it's norms. Do not hesitate to report any harmful or malicious behaviour, especially if it breaks our servers rules.

Please do not bully our users. This includes rudely admonishing them for not using alt-text or content warnings properly on every occasion. Our guidelines encourage this, but we want our users to learn, not to be bullied off the Fediverse. Polite interactions and constructive suggestions are welcome.

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1. Don't post content that is flatly racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, ableist, misogynistic, or otherwise bigoted.
2. Don't use your account to harass or troll other users on counteforce.social
3. Don't use your account to harass or troll other users on other instances
4. Don't use your account to harass or troll regular people in general
5. Become familiar with the privacy and account moderation settings on Mastodon and use them
6. Don't post any illegal content, or talk about illegal acts, or otherwise post anything that could cause legal trouble for the server (where your images and posts live)
7. Use Content Warnings for the following types of content: nudity, gore, drug use/paraphernalia, depictions or detailed descriptions of sex acts, mentions or depictions of suicide/self-harm, abuse, rape, or sexual assault
8. Try to use image descriptions (alt text)