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51 thoughts on “Mastodon v. Post v. Twitter v. Everything Else”
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This page has been updated, and all the material moved to a new page here.
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One thing to add that’s simple but may be important to fellow newbs – I just learned today – the metatext app makes it look more like Twitter. The mastodon app itself is quite clunky.
Teri,
You have bravely taken on a complicated topic and made it seem less frightening. Good job!
It took me ages to understand Twitter, that it’s only as good as the people you choose to follow, same with Mastodon. Climb aboard, don’t be afraid to push buttons and flip switches. I’m starting out following people mostly randomly, then will sort the wheat from the chaff later. Interestingly though, I’ve seen no meanness yet, everyone seems to want to make it work.
(In passing) Mastodon and the Fediverse are a reversion to an older model of provision of internet services; the distributed (“federated”) server network. These services were the ones which provided the models for the modern massive commercial social networks. They still exist but are backwaters; they were hard to use for most people and had troublesome security problems. And so, still, with Mastodon.
I too have established a Mastodon account; I have no idea what Twitter will turn into under Musk, and I doubt the results will be good. But…But…
If you want to read more about this at greater length, I wrote four blog posts on it that begin at https://shinycroak.blogspot.com/2022/11/on-twitter-and-mastodon-first-thoughts.html.
A heads up on other criticism I’ve been seeing on twitter: Mastodon was developed by a Russian. Of course the implication is that Mastodon is a Russian honeypot or in some way benefiting the Russian government.
That Mastodon is open source is the counter-argument. The code is available to read through and analyze, and has been by hundreds of developers from multiple countries. Thus far, no nefarious code has been found.
That’s also straight-up disinformation. The developer is German.
Love your post! A few corrections:
« If the server is on this list, anyone can join. » — There are many more servers (~4000) that aren’t on that list and that people can join. That list is just the ones that meet a certain set of standards (https://joinmastodon.org/covenant) and that whoever maintains that list has become aware of.
« Mastodon has a strict policy against racism and creepy behavior. » — I think that’s just Mastodon gGmbH, the non-profit that acts as a steward of the software. Anyone can stand up a Mastodon server (or a Pleroma server, or anything else that’s compatible) and participate in the network and set whatever policies they want. In fact, there are a number of instances that are racist, creepy, and most any other bad thing you might imagine. But they get blocked by the admins of most of the other instances.
« No ads. In fact, ads are forbidden on Mastodon. » — There’s nothing forbidding ads. It’s just not part of the design, or the current culture.
« You will never see anything they post and they will never see anything you post. » It’s true that from inside any of the web or phone apps, people on blocked servers can’t see your stuff. But they can just browse the web version of your account, without being logged in, and see anything you post publicly. (And most content is posted publicly. The “followers-only” mechanism is kind of unintuitive and in my opinion broken. I would use it sparingly at most!) So for example, they could visit https://mastodon.social/@Gargron without being logged into anything.
« Mastodon allows 500. » — That’s the default, but server set their own post size limits. For example, infosec.exchange allows 11000 characters. Long posts get collapsed down.
« Mastodon has an edit button. » — This is very, very new and not all servers have it yet. Most have “delete and re-draft”, which has all the downsides of deleting a post. But editing is being rolled out!
Teri — When you first mentioned you were drafting this item, I was struggling to figure out how to even get into Mastodon, so I didn’t understand how Mastodon could take off given its initial complexity.
But I took the plunge on a server, and spent some time looking at the options available. I’m really starting to like it, so I think you’re right that this will be the way to go.
Some readily accessible tools are needed to ease those who need hand-holding into the fediverse but those will come. It’s not a good time for those people anyhow: Mastodon is gaining new users in droves, overwhelming servers and causing glitches and delays. (I just saw a post that 600,000+ people have joined in the last week.) Things will get ironed out, but a little patience is required.
Thank you for your thoughts! This made me think a lot. If you don’t mind, can I translate this article into Korean? Twitter exodus is also happening here, so I’d like to let new users know how Mastodon is different from Twitter 🙂
certainly!
Thank you so much!
Following… there.
The whole Twitter thing reminds me that single sourcing anything comes with risk and just because it’s easy doesn’t make it right.
I have the ability to learn simple tasks even if they are organized in counterintuitive ways. And I relate to Ned Ludd at times. Well… not all the time. But sometimes.
Brief thought on the idea of a meme. It has come to mean a picture with a caption, conveying an idea, a reaction, or a rhetorical or satirical concept or response. The word has an older meaning though”
meme (mēm) noun
1. A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.
2. Any unit of culturalinformation, such as a practice or idea, that is transmittedverbally or by repeatedaction from one mind to another.
3. A self-propagating unit of cultural evolution having a resemblance to the gene (the unit of genetics).
In the third definition, it is self-propagating–an idea that spreads itself from one brain to another. This is how conspiracy theories spread. It is how fascism becomes popular. Demagogues are vectors for the spread of meme-plagues.
A meme in this sense can be likened to a virus that can cause a pandemic. There is no natural immunity. We must develop the equivalent of masks, social distancing, and vaccines. Social media encourages the spread of meme-viruses.
Teri,
as you’ve been using a non-federated instance (Counter.Social) as well as federated ones, what do you think of the non-federated, tightly-run Counter.Social?
I like it, but I am concerned that the owner is anonymous and that there IS an owner. I like the idea of owning my own Mastodon server. I own my website and count it as a business expense.
I am unable to follow you on mstdn.social but I can on counter.social. I have no idea why because I can follow other accounts on mstdn.social
You can’t follow me at https://law-and-politics.online/@Teri_Kanefield
?
Yes! That worked
Erm… probably a dumb question but what’s the difference between “federated” and “non-federated”?
Federated means a network of independent instances (servers) able to communicate with each other using the same communication protocol. E-mail is a similar structure. There are many e-mail servers, each uses the same rules for structuring messages and sending/receiving them.
Non-federated means a single instance with all communication occurring within the single instance.
Counter.social, as I understand it, uses the same software/code as other Mastodon instances, but it has cut itself off from other Mastodon servers keeping all its users within its virtual 4 walls and under the control of the single owner/operator of the 1 instance.
Interesting. I thought they were a lot alike.
The history that broke counter.social off from the Mastadon fediverse was over the blocking of countries like Iran, N Korea and Russia, but the owner did that as a way to mitigate the known hostile state threat actors disinformation warfare. At any rate, the community there is very much like what you describe with Mastadon, takes a little detox time to realize how much the algorithms have manipulated your reactionary reflexes (it’s called reflexive control when used in propaganda). But the history is detailed in the first section of their help.counter.social page – what he also does is provide real time network configuration and performance stats including new user counts etc. I’ve enjoyed my first month so much there that I did upgrade to the nominal 4.99 / mo pro account to support the stellar efforts I have observed there.
“(When tech people make their stuff free it’s called opensource.)”
Close, but not exactly. If it’s free, it’s usually open source. If it’s open source, it’s probably free. Certainly, if the source is open, it’s hard to charge for it, but begware exists and isn’t considered free. My password management software is free: http://www.gnu.org/software/gnu-pw-mgr
because it is licensed for anyone to use and the source is open, both.
=====
Sadly, I’m not a GUI programmer, so it only works in plain text mode and not on iPhones. 🙁
when I get a chance I’ll fix it. Right now . . . dang! I have a deadline.
It’s close enough that you needn’t feel rushed.
I’ll also expand: A computer program or application or game that I create, and that I give away free to anyone to use, is freeware.
If I also give away the source code for it (so other people can change it, alter it. make it into something new), that’s open source.
It’s the difference between giving away free cars (freeware) and giving away the plans that tell people how to build (and, therefore, modify, if they want) the car I designed (open source).
Probably more detailed than anyone needs to know 🙂
Thank you for your thoughts on Mastodon and the future of social media. You make a compelling case for giving Mastodon a chance. Thoughtful exchanges exploring complex ideas rather than rage-inducing simplification is exactly what we need as a society.
I joined on Sunday, but it was a little rocky getting started, even just getting the email to confirm my account. As a result I created a second account a few days later on a more local server to see if that makes any difference, but it’s too early to tell. It’s also a little more challenging to find those you want to follow, but ensuring that you have to make an effort to do so is actually a good thing.
Given I’m a software/systems engineer, the idea of learning new software is fun for me – after all, I even like playing with TurboTax software when I get each tax year’s installment. I can see that some of the smaller Mastodon servers may experience more potential glitches than the existing social media conglomerates if they get hit with huge traffic increases which seems to be happening right now. As it scales, those glitches should decrease, I hope.
I noticed that when I followed you, you had your account set to require requests to follow rather than just letting anybody follow you. Any thoughts on the pros and cons of that particular setting from your perspective?
I don’t have it set that way, and it seems to be a glitch. I haven’t approved a single follower but they’re all there. I suspect that all of these servers are a bit overloaded. (By the way, how did you like my technical explanations?
Andy laughed. I was like, ‘yeah, but is it right?'”
I thought your technical explanations were interesting from a “user experience” perspective. Are they how an engineer would phrase them? No, but that’s OK, and yes, a few made me chuckle a little. Are they right? Mostly, with a few nits that others have pointed out, but overall, you did a nice job in providing an informative overview. Must be all that legal investigation in your past. 🙂
I’d say that this essay is a strong statement in favor of moving away from the whole corporate social media universe. Will the Mastodon model be the dominant social media framework in the future? Unknown, but it certainly has a lot of positives once you get past the initial learning curve. On the other hand, for those so-inclined, there are also ways to mostly avoid the algorithms even in the corporate driven social media universe (things like lists in Twitter or going directly to profiles/pages of interest on Facebook for example).
Have you checked to make sure someone else hasn’t claimed your name on another server? Happened to Angry White House Staffer. I reported the fake one (he knows about it) and joined the real one.
“I’ll be reading the comments so I can correct any accuracies and include things I forgot.”
Only because you asked for corrections, I’ll mention that “opensource” is generally two words. I think I’ve normally seen it as “open source”. On the website where Mastodon posts its actual source code, I see that Mastodon uses as a hyphen – and so “open-source”. Hyphenation isn’t wrong, just less common in my experience.
hyphenated variations are the bridge form to becoming a single word.
She hurried up the process. 🙂
One needs a passport to become a citizen of the Hyphen-Nation.
Before choosing a server I would do some research on the servers you’re considering.
The Journo server has a list of blocked servers it won’t communicate with.
Also do a quick Google search and see who runs the server. It may save you a lot of headaches later.
Nice summary. One thing I’d add is that “Consent” and “Personal control” are an integral part of site design. Examples beyond those you mentioned:
* There is an option where users may choose to approve/disapprove any follow requests
* Users can hide their “social graphs” (followers and follows)
* “Content warnings” give users detailed control over what they view from the feed
The sum of these many small differences create a very, very different user experience.
And I second Caomhán’s comment about giving oneself the time to learn how the local community works. Recently, I’ve seen several posts from new users where they’ve realized that they needed time to absorb the new vibe (one called it “detox”) in order engage on Mastodon. To a person, they all found it
revelatory.
I want to take a screenshot and move this to the body of the post so that people see it.
In the spirit of consent – snapshot away!
Me again. This might be a candidate for “further reading” https://clivethompson.medium.com/mastodon-is-antiviral-design-42f090ab8d51
NB: I take no offense if/when my comments are deleted.
Another. This one talks about how Masto search is different than Google/Twitter search. IMO, it’s something that migrating users will need to adapt to.
https://midrange.tedium.co/issues/how-mastodon-search-works/
A few things— warning this is going to ramble.
* mastodon uses a protocol called ActivityPub which is based on work by Evan Prodromou. There are many software implementations that “speak”‘ ActivityPub, mastodon being only the best known. There is other microblogging like pleroma and Misskey, as well as other applications that focus on other content. peertube for videos and pixelfed for images(for example) All these things together are often referred to as the fediverse.
* Whatever mastodon’s policy on ads, since it’s AGPL licensed, someone could fork it and make an ad-friendly version of the software. The question would be whether other fediverse admins would defederate from any instances that had ads.
* Decentralization is sometimes messy. Yesterday the admin of scholar.social (the big mastodon instance for academics) announced it was defederating from journa.host .
Decentralization can be messy indeed! I’ve been watching that situation (scholar/journa), and part of me wonders if things might settle back into a somewhat more congenial arrangement. This afternoon, I read several threads where positions were softening. Very TBD.
It is a great real-time lesson re: how federation enables (requires?) the communities to define boundaries and negotiate on points of disagreement. The ability to defederate is a key concept behind that process. Fascinating to watch.
I agree, it is fascinating. Discussion, respect for other’s values, and consent are fantastic values that the federation essentially requires.
One of the things I’ve started to pay keen attention to is how Masto’s design ethos and culture (as well as the Fediverse) may/may not support the marginalized communities that found a home on Twitter. Paradoxically, it might put them at increased risk. Ditto for activists and a few other key groups.
These issues may start to become more obvious as more accounts migrate, and the userbase diversifies. There’s an innate tension between centralized v decentralized design that’s going to be playing itself out for the next decade or two.
I have heard this, but I’m not sure it makes any sense. Sherrilyn Ifill just joined: https://mstdn.social/@ifilljustice@mastodon.social
(Can’t nest my answer to your comment.)
True. I’m also following Ifill on Mastodon. It’s challenging to outline/describe what I’m seeing/thinking in comment form. (Plus, I’m wary speaking for others). But with my background (data/information architecture, large systems design), I’m beginning to see some key challenges ahead.
About that learning curve for new Mastodon users.
By needing to learn more than type and hit a button a new user begins to learn a little about the cultural side of the community. That’s important. From my few days (10) it seems even the learning curve isn’t slowing people down enough to absorb much beyond the type and post mechanics.
They’re picking up the keys to the new car, getting in and staring to drive before checking what side of the street to use in this community. Many new drivers lack the basic use of traffic signals such as content warnings (which are often used as a subject heading for any topic or for long threads) and image descriptions. I’ve found the Mastodon community to be more aware of making posts accessible than the commercial/ corporate sites. It’s a community of people rather than sites with users.
For a long term citizen’s view you may find this interesting.
https://www.hughrundle.net/home-invasion/
Thanks
What a fabulous piece.
Caomhán, I think you’re entirely right about the behavior of Mastodon newbies (of whom I am one). One thing I’m seeing on my Mastodon feed as a result of people driving the new car without having learned the culture and the rules is a tendency to just reboost Twitter content (with a link to the tweet they’re reboosting). There’s one account I’m going to unfollow because it does nothing but this. I confess I’ve done this myself once already, but it was a special circumstance where the OP had been put in Twitter jail for posting certain public health information. Anyway, as people who have newly migrated to Mastodon learn the ropes, hopefully there will be less of this.
People posting mostly twitter content are getting to irritate me as well. I’m starting to unfollow those who do so most of the time. I admit to being fascinated with Twitter’s fate, but there are more direct, primary, sources.
One thing I recall from an orgy of reading is how often people encourage unfollowing as healthy. Setting boundaries need not be a public announcement, which can be misread as something others have to do to take care of you. Simply taking actions that help your health using the various tools available. Learning more about the tools for that sort of self care needs to be higher on my agenda.
This post makes me hopeful. It even makes me go back to my nascent Mastodon profile to try harder to make the site work for me. It took me forever to get Twitter and then I was just addicted (not to the hellscape, to the access to primary sources and content providers). Now I have to start over, with literally you as my only touchstone. But you make some really good arguments here and I’d love to find a social media platform that didn’t compromise my values at every turn…..
There are tools available which will let you find those you follow on Twitter and list their Mastodon addresses if they have one. You can import the list to Mastodon, wait a few mintes, and your follows list begins to grow. Here’s one of the tools: https://fedifinder.glitch.me/