In case you’re not aware of, Twitter is experiencing some deep changes, depending on the eye of the beholder, these changes are great or catastrophic. Personally, I use twitter a lot! When configured properly (i.e., proper filtering) it’s a great source of information. Nevertheless, the changes are pushing many users to search for alternative/similar platforms and the one the comes time and time again it’s called: Mastodon.

I’ll try to explain here how Mastodon works, so you -my dear reader- have a realistic expectation on how the service behaves, what it does, and how it does it. Maybe you’re willing to jump the ship, or maybe you conclude that in its current form, it’s not for you.

Just to avoid you from reading further -thus wasting your time- here’s my verdict:

As long as you’re open to the differences, and as long as the people you follow are ALSO in Mastodon, it can replace twitter.

In my case, I’m lucky enough that many of the people I follow on Twitter, have also migrated towards Mastodon. Granted -at the moment of this writing- the traffic in Mastodon is insignificant compared to any current social network. Again, in my case, there’s way less noise with great quality. Your mileage will vary. Metcalf’s Law 1-0-1.

Mastodon

Mastodon is an open source social network, it’s meant so any person can establish their own social network. While setup is by no means simple, it’s possible. You want a social network just for your family, on which you can freely share information and photos without the fear that info is used by other entities? Mastodon is the platform for this. That’s the objective, remember this, because much of its behaviour is based on this philosophy.

Currently, FaceBook, Twitter, TikTok, etc. are one entities, you create an account there and you belong to that silo (which include millions of users). Mastodon can’t afford to be like that, thus one Mastodon entity (server/instance) can communicate with another one and share information among them. This is accomplish by using the Fediverse protocol. Mastodon is not the only one using this protocol, but it’s vastly becoming a prominent one of it. WordPress is also compatible with the Fediverse, which leads us to ….

How Mastodon accounts work?

Pay attention because it appears to be confusing, but it really makes sense.

You could see Mastodon as a mix between WordPress and e-mail. How come? The parallel to WordPress is that, WordPresses can be installed, used and administer for free (ignoring hosting costs). You just need to download it, install it and you’re done! Mastodon is the same, and as with WordPress all it needs is a domain and proper server to function.

The parallel with e-mail is the accounts. Let’s suppose somebody creates the email geekdude@gmail.com (just an example). We all know geekdude is the name of the account and the domain is gmail.com. Maybe you can create the same one in outlook.com or Yahoo. The point is that the name of the account is attached to the service/instance/server on which it was created. It won’t work on another one.

So, you’ll see that mastodon accounts are like: @geekdude@nerds.movies.com

Therefor: The account is @geekdude and the server where is hosted is @nerds.movies.com. Just like e-mail. This means that there can be another Mastodon server @nerds.books.com and ANOTHER person can take the account @geekdude@reader.books.com, or the same person. It all depends who arrives first, like e-mail!

Things get interesting

Again, just like with e-mail you can send email to any other email services, you just need the recipient, with Mastodon you can follow accounts from other Mastodon servers. That’s how you follow people and that’s how it works.

But wait, there’s more … This means that you can export your account from @nerds.movies.com to @reader.books.com (even if on the new server is a different account name?), all your history, followers and following is exportable/importable. Something you can’t do on any of today’s social network silos.

WARNING!

The import/export feature only works if you account is NOT blocked on the source server. So, try to have a frequent backup to avoid such scenario of loosing all your account history.

Instances, Instances

However, this flexibility of anybody establishing their own Mastodon server/instance, also imply one two important facts:

1. Each owner of the instance decides their social network rules. Be sure to read and understand them before committing to any instance. You account could be locked for whatever reason they see fit. You have been warned. But if you made your homework and did a backup of your account, such locking shouldn’t affect since you can move to another server, problem solved.
2. Direct messages are not private NOR encrypted, this is by design. An instance/server administrator can see your direct message. Therefor it’s not advised to share any personal or sensitive information there.

Last but not least, on Twitter you can quote a Tweet with an RT, like this:

Your can’t do that in Mastodon. You can RT, but not with a quote, this is -again- by design. Could it change? Maybe.

So there you have it, the basics of how Mastodon works, I hope you like it too!

PS: This is the time/place that I should put my Mastodon account, however our Mastodon server is still in test, that would be a topic for another post 🙂

IMG Source: Sponchia