Twitter has undergone an enormous evolution since its birth. And it is that although it does not seem so much, more than 16 years have passed since his birth. In all this time, in which alternatives such as Mastodon have emerged, we have seen changes at a technical level, in the operation of the service itself and also in the type of content that we can find. And in my opinion, as a user since 2008, which has already rained, I think this is the change that I have accused the most and, at times, the one that makes me a little tired of Twitter.
Twitter has a problem with hate and fake news. The debate on freedom of expression has become recurrent when talking about this social network, in which we can daily see lies elevated to the rank of incontestable truths, insults and disqualifications, personal attacks, smear campaigns and, in short, levels of polarization which, personally, I find quite worrying.
It is true, however, that we can also find sensational content, usually in the form of threads. From aeronautics to gastronomy, from history to architecture and urban planning, from cleaning to cinema… the list is endless, and a well-selected feed can offer us a lot of this and very little, close to absolute zero, of the other part, of which every day it pushes more people to consider putting land in between with respect to this social network.
Be that as it may, every day there are more reasons to consider leaving Twitter (and other social networks too, of course), and a good part of them have less to do with the approach of the network than with its content, its policies, the risks to privacy, advertising, etc. And if that is your case and you still do not know Mastodon, you should know that this alternative has already existed for a long time.
What is Mastodon?
Launched in October 2016, Mastodon is a microblogging social network, a description that is impossible not to relate to Twitter. And this is not by chance, of course, since as we explore this social network, we see that Mastodon could perfectly pass for a Twitter clone, although it is true that its visual appearance is more reminiscent of some account management applications and services social networks.
Nevertheless that initial similarity between Mastodon and Twitter should not confuse us, because as soon as we delve a little deeper we find differences, both in concept and in operation. And it is in these differences that lies the reason why a still not very large but growing number of users have made the leap. Whether to swap Twitter for Mastodon or to simultaneously use both, curiosity about this social network is growing.
A key difference between Twitter and Mastodon is that the latter is open source.. Thus, and unlike what happens with Twitter, any user who wishes can analyze the guts of Mastodon to find out how it works. This supposes a model of transparency that we are not used to with social networks and their algorithms, and it points precisely in the direction that these services should follow.
Another difference from Mastodon is that It is a decentralized network. It is made up of multiple servers operated in a particular way. This raises a very important difference, and that is that unlike what happens on Twitter, users and content vary from one server to another. However, there are some interconnected servers (federated, in the jargon of this social network), so that users who access one of them can see the content of other Mastodon servers federated with it.
For those who still do not know Mastodon, this is one of the best surprises that this social network offers: mastodon has no advertising. However, at this point it is important to take into account a nuance, and that is that there is nothing that prevents this from changing in the future. As I have said before, the servers are operated individually by their managers, so that if one of them decides, at some point, to start including advertising to cover server expenses or to obtain profits, nothing, except the exodus of users, you can prevent it.
Types of Mastodon Servers
At this point we can attend to two classifications: by accessibility and by content. In the first point, the administrators of the Mastodon servers can allow free access to any interested user, who can therefore join them immediately, or make users have to request access to the group that will be granted or not. by its administrators. As a general rule, as is understandable, open general purpose servers usually have many more users than restricted ones.
In this respect, however, do not expect to find millions of users. The most populous server on the web, mastodon.social, has just under 690,000 users. For its part, if we review the directory of servers in search of the most populated in Spanish, we find mastodon.nobigtech, with around 2,300 people. For some people, this may be a drawback, but we can also see it as an advantage, depending on what we are looking for in a social network.
The other classification of Mastodon servers has to do with their type of content, and that is that we can find quite a few theme servers. These are the categories that we can find in the Mastodon directory:
- General
- Regional
- Art
- Music
- Activism
- LGBTQ+
- Video game
- Technology
- Academic
- furry
- Meal
General, as you can imagine, offers servers where you can talk about any topic, so it is the category that most resembles Twitter.
Keep in mind, that surely you have already thought about it, that in Mastodon user accounts are restricted to servers. In other words, if you want to participate in several, you will have to register individually for each of them. The only “exception” in this regard, and it is only a partial exception, is found in the federated servers, since access to one of them will allow you to see the content of the rest as well.
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