Because of its new owner Elon Musk, who’s making significant changes, the social network Twitter is likely going through some of its most difficult periods ever. There are still many unknowns, but it appears that Twitter user accounts will have a monthly subscription and that many executive roles will witness a shift in personnel, which will significantly alter the corporate structure.
Even with these significant developments, Twitter has recently seen a significant migration of users who are moving en masse to the Mastodon social media platform.
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Social Media Coming from the Sidelines
Mastodon is an open-source social network, or platform, that has been operating for a while. Due to the current state of affairs with Twitter, joining Mastodon has all of a sudden become trendy as this social media site has added about 500,000 user profiles. This relates to both newly created profiles and previously inactive profiles. It’s hard to predict what will occur shortly, but Twitter’s user numbers are concerning, and Mastodon is in the process of anticipating the expected rise in new users.
Let’s describe Mastodon. It’s often quite comparable to social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr. You can use text, images, or videos to post on it, and you can follow users to see their postings. Although Mastodon may not appear to be distinct from some of the other social networks at first look, there are several aspects that are unique and have to do with the infrastructure, particular features, and decision-making opportunities that primarily improve the user experience.
No Tedious Algorithms
Today’s social networks are frequently criticized for their algorithms and the way they favor particular kinds of information. Algorithms play a major role in Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter’s default sorting, which substitutes algorithms for plain chronological order to choose which posts you view.
It should be noted that the functioning of algorithms can be very helpful at times. A clear example is the social media site TikTok, which has quickly risen to prominence due to its outstanding algorithm for identifying viral video clips.
You’ll be surprised to learn that Mastodon doesn’t utilize any algorithms at all. Absolutely none. With Mastodon, all of the posts from the users you follow are displayed on your home page in chronological order without any adverts or featured posts in between.
You don’t need to reload the home page in order to view content that was initially concealed after you make it to the top of your feed and can read all of the entries.
Fediverse
Although the structure of Mastodon may seem complex at first, it is the aspect of the community that draws people in the most. Mastodon has many servers (sometimes referred to as “instances”), not just one, where users can register for accounts and begin posting. “Fediverse” is the collective name for these servers.
Without creating a separate account on each server, users can follow one another across them. Similar to email services, this is. If you have a Gmail account, you can talk to people who have Gmail accounts as well as people who use Yahoo or Outlook.
Server Types
In Fediverse, some servers, such as mastodon.social and mastodon.online, are general-purpose, while others are focused on particular communities or topics. Mastodon.art for designers and artists and fosstodon.org for users interested in tech and free software are two examples. There are a lot of options available to you.
The ActivityPub protocol, utilized by various other social networks as well, is what powers the entire Fediverse. Although some people believe that Mastodon’s overall infrastructure isn’t ideal and is now experiencing a lot of stress, it’s nonetheless a noteworthy accomplishment.
Better UX
Mastodon has included many functionalities that you might also find in other social networks, but it also has some unique features that were specifically designed to avoid the drawbacks that many users are accustomed to.
One is that Mastodon doesn’t provide full-text searches. You can look for hashtags or text that contains hashtags, but plain text searches won’t yield any results. By doing this, spammers and individuals who purposefully look for victims to write derogatory or insulting remarks are prevented. In this approach, the searchable options are constrained, but it also benefits groups created around particular themes or communities because it attracts individuals who are interested in taking part in the debate or submitting posts with the targeted content.
Mastodon also lacks the capability to share an article while leaving a remark. Such behavior is permitted on other social media platforms, such as Twitter’s “quote tweeking” and TikTok’s “stitch”, however, this feature frequently draws spammers who distribute undesired content and disrupt the conversation’s natural flow.
The content warning/spoiler tool on Mastodon also improves user experience. Hide stuff that many people don’t wish to see is its primary duty (e.g. spoilers for movies). This functionality is additionally useful for discussions about other topics that some users may find irrelevant or uninteresting. For instance, anything with the tag “pol” that relates to the policy can receive a warning. The policy is strict in some areas, such as no paid ads for Bitcoin Cash casino sites or any gambling sites).
Influencers on social networks will hardly find Mastodon’s aforementioned features appealing, but they’ll enhance the user experience and the caliber of conversations.
Opening a User Account
Mastodon provides more than just the things we’ve covered here. We may also point out the use of personalized emojis, the absence of any advertisements or commercials, the use of website-based authentication rather than personal data, etc.
If Mastodon’s features appeal to you, you are welcome to try creating a user account. The hardest step is actually the first one because you have to accept a new application and locate the address of a particular server (instance) on Mastodon. If an existing user can send you an invite, creating a user account is the simplest process. If not, you’ll need to discover a server on the official Mastodon website. An even simpler method is to follow the walkthrough that explains how to reach some of the servers.
After confirming your account, go to “Edit Profile” and fill in your information. Now that you have access to the servers you choose, you can follow other users and try to identify yourself by stating your interests.