Looking for an alternative to Twitter and/or Bluesky? It's time to check out Mastodon!
What is Mastodon?
Mastodon is a decentralized, federated, and open-source (don't sweat it if you don't know what those terms mean, we'll get into it more later) social network owned by everyone, not a group of billionaires like Twitter or Bluesky.
I just want to sign up, I don't care about anything else!
Great. If you don't want to bother with the hassle of picking an instance (again, more on this later) you can sign up at the "flagship" instance, but we really do suggest you read on...
Okay, I'll keep going
Awesome! Glad to have you with us. Like any new technology, you'll need to know what Mastodon and the Fediverse are and how they can help you before you dive into them headfirst - but we promise you'll love it!
What does "open-source" mean?
Open-source means anyone can view, download, and modify the "source code" (the basic computer code that makes up Mastodon) as they wish, as long as they don't charge money for it or claim it as their own.
In fact, you can look at the source code of Mastodon right here!
Anyone can download this code and run it if they have the knowhow, and that will give them their own personal Mastodon social network on their computer (which can then talk to other Mastodons - more on that later).
What does "decentralized" mean?
Decentralized means all of the content and social network isn't in one central place - if you make a post on Mastodon A, someone on Mastodon B can like that post, reply to it, and even follow you, all from a different Mastodon.
These individual Mastodons are called "instances", and every instance talks to every other instance to form a spiderweb of sorts, making up the collective Mastodon network and the wider "Fediverse". This is known as "federation".
I still don't get it, can you elaborate?
Of course! You can think of each Mastodon instance as a town with a post office, and its users as the residents of the town. When someone wants to send a letter to someone else in the town, it goes to the local post office and is sent out to someone else in the town.
When someone wants to send a letter to another town, it goes through the first town's post office, then on a truck to the next town's post office, and then the post office of that town (the instance) delivers it to the recipient (the user).
It's similar to email, in that people using different email services can send mail to one another no matter what service they use.
ActivityPub and the Fediverse
Every Mastodon instance sends posts to one another via a protocol (sort of like a special language computers speak to one another) called ActivityPub.
Any other social media that supports ActivityPub can communicate with a Mastodon instance, and the Mastodon instance can communicate with it. Most ActivityPub-compatible social media are also open source, and as such anyone can run their own instance of it.
All of these different instances and social networks, all communicating with each other, make up the Fediverse (federated universe).
Finding an instance
Many Fediverse social networks have "flagship" instances, which are the largest and therefore often thought of as "main" instances. These are typically run by the developers of that social network, but not always. However, these instances might not be the best fit for you.
If you want to easily find an instance, the Fediverse Observer has a searchable list of Fediverse instances with various info like the number of users on that instance and where the instance is run from.
Getting started
Now that you've signed up, you might be wondering why your feed isn't showing anything. The Fediverse has no algorithms, you follow people and hashtags that you want to see. Once you search around and follow some things, your feed will be showing posts.
Most Fediverse instances have a list of "trending" posts. These are just posts that are getting lots of attention, not an algorithm. Once you've followed some things, make a post about yourself and tag it with #introduction.
People will see your post and suggest things to follow or check out based on the interests you listed in your introduction post. Make sure to also report unsavory content. Reporting actually works on the Fediverse, and so does appealing reports.
Behaving yourself on the Fediverse
The Fediverse, like any social media, has a set of unwritten rules you are expected to follow. Do note that these rules are like the Pirate's Code - they're more guidelines, really. Doing something bad with good intent is more excusable than doing something good with bad intent,
and offenses are decided on a case-by-case basis. Not following these rules won't necesarilly result in punishment, but people will probably not think of you as highly.
No bigotry
I think this goes without saying, but just don't do it. It's not nice for any party involved and almost always will get you reported and then swiftly banned.
Fill in your profile
Uploading a profile picture and setting a profile description will make it more likely that people interact with you, as you will look less like a spammer.
Add alt text
Alt text (short for "alternate text") is an accessibility feature that allows adding text to describe an image, so people with vision problems can still tell what is going on in your post. Not adding it or putting very little effort into it is seen as not nice.
A general rule of thumb for good alt text is that you should be able to give that text to someone and they should be able to draw that image so that their drawing can clearly be traced back to the original image. In other words, describe the image so that you can match
the description up to the image in your head. If you need help, look at some other alt text and see how those people did it.
Concerns/FAQs
By now, I'm sure you have some concerns about the Fediverse. We'll go through some likely ones.
Does the Fediverse get spam?
Yes. Nothing is immune to spam. However, the Fediverse gets a lot less because reports are actually paid attention to by the moderators of any good instance. If you see spam or rule-breaking content, report it!
What happens if a bad instance makes its way into the Fediverse?
This is taken care of by a process called "defederation". An instance administrator can choose to cut off traffic between their instance and a problematic instance, so that instance can't see or interact with your posts, and you can't see or interact with theirs.
If an instance is notoriously bad, it is added to a list of bad instances. Most instance owners then look at that list and defederate all those instances, effectively cutting that instance off from most of the network.
What are the benefits of federation? How does it help me?
For one thing, you only need one account to access this large network of content (instead of several accounts, one for each social media). Second, the network is very redundant. If you decide you don't like how your instance is doing (perhaps the admins have been making some
bad decisions) or if the instance you're on shuts down, you can very easily pack up your follows and other data, and move your profile to a new instance (the old instance will then redirect people to your new profile, assuming it is still running).
Isn't Bluesky federated too?
Yes, but not really. More info here.
See you on the Fediverse!
-GroupNebula563 - @GroupNebula563@mastodon.social