MediaCrash Blog

I started a Mastodon account a few years ago, just because I’ll support pretty much anything that is open source and non-corporate. In case you don’t know what Mastodon is, the quickest way to describe it is that it’s a social media  platform sort of like Twitter.

I’ve never really posted too many things there though (mostly because I didn’t actually understand how the timeline was working).

But over  the last few weeks, I’ve learned a bit more about how the platform works and I think it’s a really cool idea. So, I’m here to go over some of the reasons you might want to join Mastodon too!

1. It’s not owned by one single company.

So having anything that is run exclusively by a group of rich, Silicon Valley dude-bros is never good, right? I’m thinking that it’s not. Mastodon is an open source protocol, not a company. It’s not owned by anyone, sort of like the http protocol (hypertext transfer protocol protocol?), or algebra isn’t owned by anyone.

Mastodon is decentralized (or federated as they like to say). This means that the code isn’t running on one, single batch of servers; the Mastodon network is spread all around the ‘net.

That means that even with all of Mastodon’s warts, you won’t get pushed around by people who are only out to make a profit off of you.

2. There are instances that focus on specific interests.

Each installation of the Mastodon software is run by admins on different servers, and these installations are called ‘instances’. (You can even run your own instance!)

Each instance can have a focus that the original admins decided on, so there are instances focused on a specific geographical area like mastodon.ie ( which seems to be a huge Ireland instance), or an industry or hobby, like mastodon.art or mastodonmusic.social. There are literally hundreds of different instances. So I’ve heard people on Mastodon say that they tried out a few different instances before they found one that felt comfortable, like they finally found their home.

But the awesome thing about the software is that you can follow anyone on any instance, even though you only made a single account on your original instance. Like, I made my account on mastodon.art, but I can follow people on all the other instances out there.

It takes some getting used to and I’m still not completely sure how it all works, but it’s really interesting.

3. It seems to be way more inclusive.

There are all sorts of oddballs popping up on Mastodon, which is great! It reminds me of what the Internet used to be like before the big social media companies like MyFace, Twatter and TikToxic just gobbled everything up. There is much more of a community atmosphere there.

4. Mastodon is far more ethical.

The main Mastodon devs are funded by donations, and here’s a quote from their site:

“There is no advertising, monetizing, or venture capital. Your donations directly support full-time development of the project.”

Need I say more?

5. MediaCrash is there!

This is the best reason of all, you can hang out with us while we explore a whole new frontier in cyberspace! I mean, that’s why we’re all on the Internet anyway, right, to do some William Gibson, Neal Stephenson ish?

So be adventurous, and see what all the fuss is about. I’m also asking you guys to join so that I have a bunch of other people to talk to while I’m on there, lol.

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