Jump to a federated social network

Nick Peers reveals how you can get up and running with this free, decentralised and non-profit alternative to Twitter.

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You might have noticed some rich guy bought Twitter and has been making changes. That’s caused many users to look for a new home that’s a little more laid-back, and the good news is the perfect alternative is non-profit, embraces everything Linux users love, and has quickly adapted to finding itself the centre of attention as its infrastructure scales up to meet the challenge of millions of new users.

Mastodon is its name, and while there are clear similarities with Twitter – both are a micro-blogging platform – there are differences, too, not least of all culturally. Mastodon comes with a slightly steeper learning curve, but don’t worry, that’s where we come in. Before you get started, here’s a quick primer to what Mastodon is and how it differs from the bird site.

The fediverse 

Unlike traditional social networks, Mastodon isn’t a single, centralised entity. Instead, it’s part of the fediverse, a huge network of independently hosted yet interconnected servers (often referred to as instances). In Mastodon’s case, each server communicates with each other through the open social networking protocol ActivityPub, which is also used by Nextcloud and other free and open alternatives to traditional platforms, such as Friendica, PeerTube and Pixelfed (offering alternatives to Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, respectively). Even Tumblr is planning to implement ActivityPub support.