I joined Mastodon - what about you?

[sun rise]

After Musk's latest political advocacy, a surge in sludge on twitter, threats to businesses and so forth, I quit the other day and joined Mastodon. So far it's a breath of fresh air. And it's also a bit complex. I had to pick a home server and now I'm learning about CW (content warnings) to go with posts to allow those who don't want to read about certain topics to avoid them. USPOL is one

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I am still so not on those things that to me Mastodon is a metal band.

 

[Revoltingest]

Join an extinct elephant-like critter?

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

watch out! It's just a GOP elephant in disguise!

 

[sun rise]

Join an extinct elephant-like critter?

You're joined at the hip to extinct heavy machinery.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

You're joined at the hip to extinct heavy machinery.

Those old machines are often more clean, polite, and vastly less filthy than social media.

 

[Altfish]

After Musk's latest political advocacy, a surge in sludge on twitter, threats to businesses and so forth, I quit the other day and joined Mastodon. So far it's a breath of fresh air. And it's also a bit complex. I had to pick a home server and now I'm learning about CW (content warnings) to go with posts to allow those who don't want to read about certain topics to avoid them. USPOL is one

Trying to but every time I try, registration is closed

 

[Quagmire]

Trying to but every time I try, registration is closed

They're being overwhelmed with new registrations.
(Sorry, can't find the news article)

 

[sun rise]

They're being overwhelmed with new registrations.
(Sorry, can't find the news article)

When I signed up, some servers were open and some were marked "request". But it sounds like that changed since last night!

 

[Ella S.]

I left Mastadon in 2018 when they began to engage in centralized moderation that applied universally across all federated instances. I was not the only one to do so.

I think it's telling that it's now become mainstream enough that it's being seriously considered as an alternative or a mirror to Twitter, rather than its own separate platform that shared a general design philosophy with Twitter. Even back then, I wasn't sure why anyone who cared about decentralizing the web would look to Twitter of all places as a role model. I suppose it was a red flag.

I see Mastadon as a complete and utter corruption of hacker culture, diluted and defanged as yet another attempt by a handful of web developers to put themselves in a position of power and influence at the expense of their users.

I resent Mastadon for what it symbolizes and I will never be signing up for its services again unless it re-brands with a new mission and completely new devs. I don't find such a re-branding likely to happen any time soon and I think this exodus to Mastadon from Twitter will only embolden them.

 

[sun rise]

I left Mastadon in 2018 when they began to engage in centralized moderation that applied universally across all federated instances. I was not the only one to do so.

I think it's telling that it's now become mainstream enough that it's being seriously considered as an alternative or a mirror to Twitter, rather than its own separate platform that shared a general design philosophy with Twitter. Even back then, I wasn't sure why anyone who cared about decentralizing the web would look to Twitter of all places as a role model. I suppose it was a red flag.

I see Mastadon as a complete and utter corruption of hacker culture, diluted and defanged as yet another attempt by a handful of web developers to put themselves in a position of power and influence at the expense of their users.

I resent Mastadon for what it symbolizes and I will never be signing up for its services again unless it re-brands with a new mission and completely new devs. I don't find such a re-branding likely to happen any time soon and I think this exodus to Mastadon from Twitter will only embolden them.

Do you find any of them worthy?

 

[Ella S.]

Do you find any of them worthy?

It's not that I view them worthy or unworthy.

Mastadon specifically seems insulting to me because it was originally marketed as a decentralized platform for like-minded computer nerds, almost like an upgrade from IRC. It essentially promised to adhere to hacker ethics and then broke them.

Personally, I only use social media as a way of reaching out to people I know or job opportunities. I try to avoid using it as much as I can. I prefer private forums like these for online discussion for a few reasons. One of the relevant reasons is that the RF staff is open about their mission statement and the terms of how I use their platform, plus they're more open to diverse perspectives than Mastadon is.

I don't intend to dissuade anyone from joining Mastadon. There are reasons to use Mastadon. It depends on your use case. I'm merely sharing why it isn't a good fit for me.