Twitter is broken. Mastodon and the fediverse could be the future

It’s an exciting time for Mastodon

I’ve long been a fan of the fediverse (Blogging as a social network) and more specifically Mastodon (The demise of social networks). You see, the fediverse works on an open protocol called ActivityPub. Think RSS feeds, but more powerful!

A dev can create a social network, and use the ActivityPub protocol to connect with other social networks using the same protocol. This is almost like email. You select an email provider (or you can build your own) and it connects with other email providers allowing for global communication. There are social networks out there which are already connected to this protocol and it’s been named the federated universe (or fediverse).

Mastodon is currently the most popular social client, and it works and looks similar to Twitter. However, there are some major differences. There is no algorithm so it’s like a really old version of Twitter. You will only ever see new posts from people you follow or anything they may share.

A lot of people are worried about selecting a specific server, but think of it like email. It doesn’t matter which server you register with, you can still interact with people outside of that server.

Each server has their own rules which you should follow. You can head to https://joinmastodon.org/servers and find one that suits your interests.

Why move away from Twitter

Since Elon purchased Twitter, he’s made some really awful decisions. He’s treating the blue verification tick as a status rather than verifying a user is who they say they are. It was meant for well-known people who may be impersonated. Say a celebrity, or journalist. You would want to make sure you’re interacting with the real verified person, and not someone trying to be that person.

However, he’s trying to monetise the blue tick and he seems to think it will help crack down on bots and trolls. I really don’t think it will help with that at all.

He’s become an egomaniac, and Twitter has become a worse place because of him. There are now more trolls, and I’ve experienced a lot more unsavoury interactions from right-wing trolls. This has, unfortunately made me want to move away, and I have chosen to move to Mastodon.

Twitter used to be a nice place

I used to love tweeting and getting involved with discussions. I even found work through Twitter and had amazing opportunities. It wasn’t a decision I took lightly, and I use Twitter. However, Mastodon has been such a better experience and I find myself using that more than Twitter.

Mastodon has my people

Mastodon is full of great people. Obviously, because of it’s open nature, there are still trolls. However, most of them come from specific servers which makes it easier to remove because you can block the entire troll domain rather than single troll accounts. Also, server admins share the domains they have blocked and their reasons, which means other admin owners can block the same domains.

There’s a lot of fantastic shared knowledge on Mastodon and there’s no space for misinformation or fake news. This is because there’s no algorithm, so there’s no way to create a top post. It all goes down nice and evenly like a winter warming soup.

There are no ads, or user tracking which is amazing! Unlike Twitter which has an algorithm designed to make you angry at the world. It’s also designed to get you interested in buying, which is against Mastodon’s values.

It’s been such a good experience, I decided to host my own Mastodon instance and migrate my account to it. You too can join my server and support future development by subscribing to a Ko-Fi tier. You can pay as little as £3 a month, and I will listen to all feedback and try my best to help create an awesome experience on the platform.

You can find my server and follow me on Mastodon if you have an account.

My plans for our Mastodon server

I have a ton of plans for the future of our Mastodon server, but these can only happen if people start supporting my writing and server through Ko-Fi.

• Separate the database and ensure all data is regularly backed up
• Seperate Redis to ensure the server can run more smoothly
• Ensure the server has 99.99% uptime
• Ensure my users have a safe and fun experience on Mastodon
• Allow users to share their work to a broader audience
• More to come!

If this sounds like something you would like as part of a social experience, then please help support me on Ko-Fi.

Of course, you don’t have to! You can also sign up to any other Mastodon server, and I’m sure you’ll still have a good experience, but I will be here to help if you need it.