I think the difference they alluded to is that they manually vetoed new users, presumably based on their self-declared goals and ideology, whereas Signal etc are neutral platforms.

The A/I vetting was in the form of a form asking why do you want A/I email or blog. You could write anything in it.

Meanwhile, Signal requires a phone number, so it knows much more about your identity than A/I did.

How do you know what the A/I vetting consisted of or what standards they held? They don't seem to have published any detailed description of the process, and by their own account they destroyed all records of the vetting after approval.

Maybe they clicked on the signup form while it was still live. You know, to gather actual information instead of speculating.

Several fediverse instances have the same thing. It's just a freeform textbox saying why do you want an account.

Again, I'm working off of the only actual information I'm aware of, A/I's self-description of how the process works. If someone has more information they should provide it rather than relying on maybes! The existence of an intake form, to be clear, doesn't really suggest that form is the extent of the process or that any reasonable answers are accepted.

Yeah I didn’t elaborate since this was explained elsewhere in the thread.