The myth goes deeper.
The story of Lisa Holst originating this myth as a spoof fact is also a myth.
Neither the supposed journalists, Lisa Holst, nor the magazine, PC Professional, exist.
The hunt is on for the earliest reference. Probably on a newsnet group.
Trolls will come up with a dumb take on anything.
Block em and.move on.
My initial response was a recollection of the plot of The Kingsman.
Sticking implants in brains for fun is stupidity on a stick.
Implants are already used to control some forms of epilepsy, however these are on the vagus nerve and not in the brain. This sort of application makes sense.
Oliphant maintains a minimum block list that most systems take as a starter list.
Each instance admin decides which servers to block for themselves. If you visit the info pages of some systems they will list blocked systems, and there are a lot of them.
There are some very unsavoury communities out there. Blocking usually revolves around how effective moderation is.
As an example you can see a list of servers blocked by mastodonapp.uk on the About page.
I'm guessing you haven't been on the #Fediverse very long so not picked up on the ethos of most of the folk who run the various instances.
Most are very protective of what they have created as a community and are definitely not in it for the money. Some are vehemently anti-capitalist.
There are many ways to get rich. Running an instance is not one of them.
Most of Europe including anyone in UK under 60, Asia, Japan, China, Australia. People in engineering and science.
Not many use Fahrenheit.
Of course downvotes can be ironic such as the one I've just added....
Cribbage, mainly because I like calling out 'one for his knob '.
Most Mastodon, Friendica, Calckey instances accept donations.
It is likely that kbin/Lemmy instances will likely follow the same model.
Advertising would not work on the Fediverse as the adverts would be blocked by other instances so the spread would be very limited so not attractive commercially.
That is one of the beauties of the federated model.
Also, as there is no algorithm or data about user interests there's no scope for advert targeting which advertisers would want.
The whole ethos of the #Fediverse is anti commercial.
This was a mistake in the bill which he retracted, amended and resubmitted.
The first cousins are safe, legally anyway.
What I don't get is I assume they had a law so why was this needed?