Mastodon

Facebook is still my prime social media tool which I've been using since 2007 to connect with friends (and friends only).  To me it's still the most "social" where I share trivial things of my life of all sorts , text and media, to people I know and I learn what my friends are up too, at least those that still use the tool. Consequently Messenger is my favourite communication tool to my friends. 
Instagram never took over the role of Facebook to me...Instagram is just a place where I store nice pictures as it was launched initially. I'm reluctant to see how Instagram has taken over as media source, communication tool etc for so many people. 


Since 2011 I started using Twitter, mainly as access to faster and better customer service of companies and as a news source.  After a while you are following some people and sometimes interact a little. Nevertheless, it was never a "social" media tool for me, rather a media tool.  I did spend a lot of time on it daily as it's a good never-ending source of news but in recent years I also noticed there is the daily scandal over which everyone is outraged etc. It was a good place to get in contact with opposing opinions but in recent years all of that had gotten quite toxic. I refrained myself mostly to share any of my opinions,  resharing something was the most I did.  


But with the take-over of Elon Musk at Twitter and the reinstatement of extreme right accounts that had previously been blocked while on the other hand journalists just got kicked off the platform, I felt I had no longer a place on Twitter. I did not contribute to any advertisement income for Elon on the contrary.  He's complaining how ad revenue dropped rapidly in the last quarter of 2022...well I'm happy to help on that and I cross my fingers that most companies make the right choice now that the tool seems to divert rapidly to a extreme right trap hole to the whims of what you read (Elon's own tweets for example) or don't get to see etc from its CEO. 


At that moment I hear the word Mastodon everywhere. I didn't jump right away with the first big waves of the twitter migration but I jumped a few weeks later.  Mastodon is an open source communication platform hosted on a Fediverse universe of different servers, each managed by their own admin (and potentially their own rules).  To join Mastodon, you must search a server to join, which seems complex but it can be compared as to choose an e-mail host: you like gmail? or hotmail? or telenet? ... Once you are online you can search every user, regardless the server they are hosted on.  

Mastodon doesn't use an algorithm to show you posts.  Over the years we got so used to the "feeds" of all tools that push us posts to read, often the most controversial first.  Mastodon is more like a pub where you walk in: busy in the evenings but with dead moments at night or during day-time.  Weird...and quite refreshing to scroll through your feed to learn you've seen it all.   A lot of twitter migrators for that reason called Mastodon boring and returned to twitter.  Already in a few months I also notice some "regulars" slowly disappear again. Nevertheless, Mastodon has doubled over the last 6 months in number of toots posted (a post is called a Toot). 

But like in a pub, you need to stop by regularly, get to know the regulars, engage in some conversations to start to feel at home.   The advice is: follow people, follow hashtags, interact.  And it works.  For me that's enough. 

I like how the "feed" is built up. There's 3 feeds:   start is the people I follow. That can be people of my server, other servers or hashtags.  There is a "home" of posts chronologically from my own server (which is mastodon-belgium)...so a lot of Belgians I start to know a little and that I potentially do not follow yet.   And there is global or fediverse where I see toots of people that are linked to those I follow from all kinds of server so it is a source of inspiration to follow more people. 

The only thing I miss from Twitter is the presence of journalists and the vast amount of toots in case some breaking news is happening.  When eg the riots in Washington happened on Jan 6th or the terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015, twitter is a prime seat in breaking news with pictures and info and there is so much less of that on Mastodon so far.  And if there is some: it is not boosted in your feed.  

On the other hand, if there are some discussions among users...none of that gets boosted by the algorithm either and it passes by like a discussion in the back of the pub that you hardly notice if you are seated on the other side.  

A lot say it's like the Internet pioneer days all back again.  And I find it refreshing and fun to spend time in.