When they announced this, Mastodon didn't seem to realize their new terms would be controversial. They also seemed to believe there had been adequate community review time because a version of the TOS had been posted in their git repo for a year. I raise my eyebrow at both these things (didn't think arbitration would be controversial, really?)… but Mastodon *is* a nonprofit that was working with a pro-bono lawyer, and their rapid backoff once the community started engaging shows good faith.
@mcc it's a testament to the predatory nature of the american legal system and the institutions it props up that even lawyers working pro bono for free software non-profits consistently can't help but reflexively write in clauses that give their clients eternal indemnity and irrevocable rights over your first-born and their descendants until the end of time
If you have a fediverse account, you can quote this note from your own instance. Search https://tech.lgbt/users/sjolsen/statuses/114711466834784180 on your instance and quote it. (Note that quoting is not supported in Mastodon.)