Centralized social media platforms are currently experiencing a shift in user engagement, drawing attention to alternative paradigms like Decentralized Online Social Networks (DOSNs). The rising popularity of DOSNs finds its root in the accessibility of open-source software, enabling anyone to create a new instance (i.e., server) and participate in a decentralized network known as Fediverse. Despite this growing momentum, there has been a lack of studies addressing the effect of positive and negative interactions among instances within DOSNs. This work aims to fill this gap by presenting a preliminary examination of instances' polarization in DOSNs, focusing on Mastodon -- the most widely recognized decentralized social media platform, boasting over 10M users and nearly 20K instances to date. Our results suggest that polarization in the Fediverse emerges in unique ways, influenced by the desire to foster a federated environment between instances, also facilitating the isolation of instances that may pose potential risks to the Fediverse.

翻译：中心化社交媒体平台正经历用户参与模式的转变，使得去中心化在线社交网络（DOSNs）等替代范式备受关注。DOSNs日益增长的普及性根植于开源软件的可获取性，这使得任何人都能创建新实例（即服务器）并参与名为联邦宇宙的去中心化网络。尽管发展势头强劲，但目前仍缺乏针对DOSNs实例间正向与负向互作用效应的研究。本研究旨在填补这一空白，通过对DOSNs中实例极化现象的初步考察展开分析，重点关注Mastodon——这一当前用户规模最广的分布式社交媒体平台，该平台现已拥有逾1000万用户及近2万个实例。研究结果表明，联邦宇宙中的极化现象以独特方式呈现，既受实例间构建联邦化环境诉求的影响，也促使对可能对联邦宇宙构成潜在风险的实例实施隔离。