Why does the Bridge Tool exist?

Bridges are important to a growing ecosystem, and to the Fediverse’s very design. They exist to bring everyone together. They’re important to bringing back the diaspora of family and friends who have fled from Twitter to different platforms than you. They’re important for following accounts from more advanced or simpler systems, like independent web sites or protocols. In short, bridges are how we connect to an even wider world.

Why are centralized platforms not included?

These bridges don’t work well and don’t have the easy, automatic setup this service relies on.

Why are blockchain-based platforms not included?

Blockchains are nothing short of scam technology. Read the Dogecoin creator’s thread about it here and watch scams unfold here.

Why do you include platforms with known moderation problems?

While I don’t recommend against it and I’ll aggressively warn about it, I still think that it’s important to have these bridges available, for the few holdouts who won’t move to a better platform for whatever reason.

I will, however, remove unmoderated bridges if I find an instance that is moderated with care. I won’t do the same for bridges that only bridge a few users, or where that is the effect.