It is in reality a Confediverse.
Edit: All Elon has to do is send out a Tweet with something to the effect of "The Left's alternative to Twitter is Mastodon a Confederacy. Now that's what I call ironic." and watch them lose their minds.
Why would that be ironic? Apart from the most well-known historical example—I assume that's your reference—there's nothing about a confederation that's inherently 'anti-left', as far as I can tell. The European Union resembles a confederation.
> Apart from the most well-known historical example—I assume that's your reference
But that particular confederacy doesn't have a monopoly on the term.
I think it would be useful if you could explain the anatomy of such a term?
My reading [1] on the matter indicates that it can't be defined as a fediverse because the content is not owned by individual posters, indeed if I were to post something on a mastodon instance, I do not retain sole ownership of the data - a moderator could delete it, and thus "censor" my opinions. But I question, is this a true critisism? And does federation require each client connected to a distributed node to in it's own right retain absolute sovereignty over the content posted on that federated instance?
Instances can block other instances. That's not a Federation. Instances can have other rules and allow other content. That's not a Federation.
Mastodon is a confederacy by definition.