I'm creating a separate topic for this since Mastodon is in the news a lot at the moment with all the goings-on at Twitter, and people may have one or two questions about it or just want to chat about it. Before I start, I should say I am not an expert by any stretch, but I do know one or two things about it. So this is an attempt to keep any such discussion in one place.
More info:
joinmastodon.org
Hopefully this helps anyone who's curious. I don't know if this topic will go anywhere, but hopefully someone will find it useful.
Above all, please keep any discussion here about Mastodon and not Twitter, that can go in the other thread.
- What is Mastodon? It's a social network that focuses on short "microblogging" posts of 500 characters called "toots", which has been around since 2016.
- So it's like Twitter then? You'll hear this a lot. Mastodon is similar in format to Twitter but not in how it operates. It is not 'Twitter without Elon Musk'.
- How is it different from Twitter? Mastodon was set up in 2016 by the FOSS community [Free Open-Source Software]. Its main difference to Twitter is that it is decentralised. You do not sign up for Mastodon and "wash and go", you sign up for a server [or an "instance"] which meets your interests. If you want to join another server you must open another Mastodon account. You can follow people from other servers, but you cannot follow a server.
- What's the point of that, then? You have to remember that Mastodon was set up by the FOSS community, so the key words are "privacy" and "control". Also this form of decentralisation reduces abuse, and it's far more likely that you'll find people being nice to each other.
- Can I start a server/instance if I don't see one I like? Of course you can, but you need some knowledge of coding and you must host it locally 24/7. It's not like Discord whereby you can click a "create server" button and it does everything for you. You need to know something about programming, or at least hire someone who does.
- Can I find people on Twitter who are on Mastodon? Not with ease, no. That's kind of the point of it. You'll probably need to contact the person directly and ask them for their Mastodon account. You can use search terms to find people of common interests, but this has to be enabled per server, and some servers will not have this enabled.
- Will people leave Twitter for Mastodon in a "mass exodus"? This is purely a point of speculation but in my opinion it's unlikely. A lot of regular users will not understand how Mastodon works and will find it confusing. I personally imagine that many will join but then revert to Twitter, but that is my own opinion.
- Is signing up easy? Yes and no. At the moment a lot of the servers are getting hammered. And many have closed their registrations. Some servers you have to apply for. But if you find an open one, you should be able to join easily, though things may be a bit glitchy while they try to cope with the current load. But I imagine things will ease up in the next few days.
More info:
Mastodon - Decentralized social media
Learn more about Mastodon, the radically different, free and open-source decentralized social media platform.
joinmastodon.org
Hopefully this helps anyone who's curious. I don't know if this topic will go anywhere, but hopefully someone will find it useful.
Above all, please keep any discussion here about Mastodon and not Twitter, that can go in the other thread.
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