Who's on Mastodon?
If you fled Twitter, or are looking for an alternative, here's some handy info.
Okay, let’s do this. Mastodon is trending hard right now with the mass exodus from Twitter. So what is Mastodon and why are so many journalists, indie writers, scientists, professors, comedians and other left-leaning folks jumping over to Mastodon, the fastest growing Twitter alternative?
Since tech isn’t my specialty, I’ll let the experts explain. I’ve curated a short list of well-written articles that cover the topic pretty well.
Thomas Escritt, Reuters, 11/7/22:
Mastodon: What is the social network hailed as a Twitter alternative?
Mastodon's advocates say its decentralised approach makes it fundamentally different: rather than go to Twitter's centrally-provided service, every user can choose their own provider, or even run their own Mastodon instance, much as users can e-mail from Gmail or an employer-provided account or run their own e-mail server.
Kalley Huang, The New York Times, 11/7/22:
What Is Mastodon and Why Are People Leaving Twitter for It?
Since Elon Musk took ownership of Twitter, some of its users have migrated to Mastodon, an alternative social platform.
How does Mastodon differ from Twitter?
Twitter is a single social network, which means that people sign up for and share content only on Twitter. Mastodon is what is known as a federated platform, meaning it is a collection of social networks — or servers — that link together but are owned by different people or groups.
Full story here.
Billy Perrigo, TIME, 11/7/22:
Thousands Have Joined Mastodon Since Twitter Changed Hands. Its Founder Has a Vision for Democratizing Social Media
(contains an interview with the founder of Mastodon, Eugen Rochko)
Full story here.
Wilford Chan, The Guardian, 11/2/22:
Mastodon gained 70,000 users after Musk’s Twitter takeover. I joined them.
The platform is home to a devoted base of left-leaning communities – and no one billionaire can control it.
I joined Mastodon this week, and it took a few hours just to master its new vocabulary. Some of it is a little silly-sounding: instead of tweets, you have “toots”. Things get trickier after that. Mastodon is not a single website but a network of thousands of websites called “instances”, also called servers. These servers are “federated”, which means they are run by different entities but can still communicate with each other without needing to go through a central system. And the space they all exist in is called the “fediverse”, which some savvy tooters call “the Fedi”.
The difference between Mastodon and a site like Twitter can feel dramatic. Elilla, a Brazilian trans woman living in Germany, said Mastodon felt much safer to her: because instances can be tightly controlled, people can have discussions without being worried about them accidentally getting broadcast to the world. “What counts as a ‘viral’ post will typically have 50 to 100 boosts. Most of my toots have two to 20 likes,” she said. “But when there’s 20 likes I know most people by name, I know their personalities and tastes and interests. There’s a feeling of reciprocity I never had on Twitter; no one is a celebrity, everyone gets read.”
Full story here.
Justin Pot, Wired, 11/5/22
How to Find Your Twitter Friends on Mastodon
If you're pondering a move to the decentralized social network, here's how to find the people you know and want to talk to.
And, unless or until I change instances, you can connect with me here:
Mastodon @martie@masto.ai.