Over the past couple of years I really started to get into Twitter in a big way. I switched from Apple News as my daily source of articles to read and set up a bunch of lists; one of twitter’s most under appreciated features. I curated lists that essentially turn my Twitter app into something more akin to Tweetdeck where I can quickly swipe between columns and explore curated feeds for news, tech, EVs, and Formula 1, for example.
It’s little features like this that really drew me into Twitter. I spent some time refining my lists to make the overall experience more useful and enjoyable. It worked, and I found myself using it almost exclusively, aside from the NY Times app. But then… shit got weird on Twitter.
I mean, shit’s always been weird, but the site’s new owner has taken things to a disturbing new level. It’s only right to explore different social spaces that are more welcoming, that can be tailored to suit my needs, a little less ad-centric, and not being torn apart by a troubled individual that is clearly losing his mind. It’s time to try something new, or at least kinda new. It’s time to give Mastodon another try.
What is Mastodon you ask?
Mastodon is an open source, decentralized social media platform similar to Twitter. It is powered by user-run servers called “instances” which are connected to each other. On Mastodon, users can post messages, images, videos, and other content to their followers. Users can also follow other users and comment on their posts. Unlike Twitter, Mastodon has no advertising and is completely free to use. It is also designed to be more privacy-focused than other social media platforms, as users can limit who can view their posts.
I asked OpenAI to write this description for me. I didn’t edit a single character, insane.
I’m an old user of Mastodon. I set up my account back in 2016, but it just wasn’t gaining enough users to hit that critical mass that could lure people away from the bird app. Now that the troll king of Twitter has essentially set fire to the platform, there are swathes of disgruntled Twitter users flocking to Mastodon (no pun intended) and we are getting a lot closer to the critical mass needed for Mastodon to mature into a mainstream social platform. Some would argue that it already has, but I still think it is yet to break out fully.
So now that there’s a bunch more people on the platform, I’ve been able to build a small but valuable list of accounts to follow. This has allowed me to compare Mastodon to Twitter, and so far I’m really enjoying the federated approach to social networking.
Federated social media is a decentralized network of social media services that communicate and synchronize with each other. It allows users to post, comment, and interact with content while still maintaining control of their data.
Another amazing description, courtesy of OpenAI.
I’m enjoying Mastodon a lot, and I am definitely going to continue building out a network on the platform. At the moment it’s about 30% Mastodon, 70% Twitter, but that percentage is changing by the day, as I see more and more of my favourite Twitter users switching over. If this is going to work, it means engaging with those new converts on the regular so that they can see the federated approach is working. This is the best chance we have at reclaiming social media and dragging it kicking and screaming into the open web, away from the ad-supported, data scraping model it has become so dependent upon. I’m excited to see the federated approach finally hit the mainstream. There is hope for a healthy and sustainable social network yet.
So, with that in mind, maybe get yourself a Mastodon account and come follow me at alexmasters@mastodon.social and recommend some other great folks for me to follow.
On a related note, I have a bunch of thoughts about the pros and cons of both Mastodon and Twitter, which I’m going to blog about separately, as an incentive to write more blog posts! 😁
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