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Back in 2009 when I joined identica I didn't fully accept the Federated label everyone was running around banging on about. To me, Federated meant I could sign in from anywhere with effectively anything. Federation was about the client you logged in with (Like PeakD), not the service (Hive). These days I'm happy to admit that I may have been slightly wrong but only slightly. Services like identi.ca, gnu.social or pump.io are Federated in the sense they are Nodes which can build, for want of a better word, a web of connectivity. There's no centralised location like Twitter or Facebook; the whole system relies on people either hosting Instances (Servers) that allow other folks to create an account on that Server or, as in my case, host your own Instance (Server). It's through those instances we make connections to other accounts and thus build up a network of connectivity, in effect, a blockchain whereby each instance hosts and maintains a record of interactions.
I can't stress enough the importance of "Doing it yourself" there are many reasons why you might wish to "host your own" maybe the service you signed up for is a bit flakey and keeps going down, or maybe you feel a bit uneasy about the Code of Conduct you agreed to or worst still (IMO) a moderator is lurking around who seems to make arbitrary decisions as to who can get away with what. Now I'm not saying that I agree with people doing "Whatever the fook they like." far from it, but if I'm to be an exponent of freedom, then I have to accept the possibility of some unsavoury characters having a platform it's the price we pay: "Better a guilty man goes free than an innocent man hangs" this is why Hive and any other decentralised platforms for that matter are so important to our freedom. Nobody can "Kick you off" or censure you either for what you've said or done for that matter, the only recourse is to block those accounts we find distasteful, and that's a good thing it's probably the best solution because you have at least adhered to the freedom ethic and the trouble-maker is still able to exercise their freedom while you are not exposed to it. Obviously, some feel that immediate action is required; they want trouble-makers expelled immediately. In fact, in some cases, I get the feeling folk would like to see some individuals taken to the market place and bullet put in the back of their heads! What I find funny about that is most of the exponents of drastic measures claim to be the biggest exponents of freedom. LOL.
What's brought all this on?
There's been a few things lately that has, in fact, hardened my views about freedom. The recent announcement that Richard Stallman was being reinstated at the FSF (Free Software Foundation) for starters. Now RMS, as he's more commonly known, does have a long history of anti-social behaviour. Still, many people were willing to overlook this behaviour due to all the good work he has done for Opensource and Free Software in general. Still, on 16 September 2019, he resigned due to some pretty obnoxious misogynist emails he sent. After a pretty brief hiatus, in my opinion, he was offered a place back with FSF, and everyone is up in arms about it. Now while this isn't strictly a Freedom thing, it does beg the question, do we believe in rehabilitation? is someone marked for life? Can someone change their behaviour? Should you have the freedom to be a hater? Maybe if Stallman had his own organisation, he wouldn't have had to resign, and people could have voted with their feet? Then came the icing on the cake today, a story that Twitch has said that it will decide how you behave both on but more importantly, off its platform! So if Twitch gets to hear that you tweeted something inflammatory or maybe you attended a considered dangerous political group, it would kick you off their platform regardless of how well you had behaved during your time on there. Now I'm not stupid, it's their Train Set, and they can do what they like, but it sets a dangerous president it allows people to control you: "You wanna be in our gang? Then ya gotta do as we say!" Interestingly I had a conversation with @hiro-hive on his blog post about moving away from the likes of Facebook to Hive, and he's right, people should move to Hive if only for the fact nobody (Supposedly) can tell you what to do, you can't be 'kicked off', and there's no sniffling jobsworth moderating your behaviour it's just a pity that the majority of Facebook and Twitter users couldn't give a monkeys fart about freedom until it affects them directly.
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For a lot of people Hive is more about money than freedom as they don't expect to get kicked off other platforms, but then people have been booted from Twitter for promoting crypto stuff and a certain world leader got his account shut down. Companies are free to set their own T&C of what is acceptable, even if not actually on their platform.
I don't think your Hive account can be shut down, but witnesses could potentially collude to remove it. Despite what some have said I believe the witnesses are a diverse bunch and not some secret cabal. If one of them were to do something distasteful then the community could opt to unvote them, but a few accounts really get to have a major say in that.
If Hive can grow then it will benefit from a wider spread of influence from different accounts.
I did have a Mastodon account, but the server I used shut down. I don't really have time to play with that and Hive, although I do use Twitter for some stuff.
I used to be on some forums, but people seem to have moved away from those to the social sites.