There are providers dedicated to hosting and running Mastodon servers. With those in hand, you can download Mastodon’s code. Your computer also needs to install some security protocols and programming languages. You have to host it yourself, which requires a website, a virtual computer system connected to the internet and an email provider. Setting up your own server is more complicated. You can also boost other people’s toots, the equivalent of a retweet. Once you sign up for an account, you can post “toots,” which are Mastodon’s version of tweets. For example, a possible username on Mastodon Social would be Regardless of which server you sign up with, you can interact with people who use other Mastodon servers, or you can switch to another one. Like an email account, your username includes the name of the server itself. Many servers are topical, ranging from one for “all the ravers in the universe” to one for Britain. There are at least 4,000 independent servers, according to estimates by fediverse.party. Some websites allow immediate registration, while others require an approval or an invitation. This website will be home to your account, profile and feeds. To join Mastodon, you sign up for an account on a server. For example, when Gab used Mastodon’s code, Mastodon Social and other independent servers blocked Gab’s server, so posts from Gab did not appear on the feeds of people using those servers. That includes establishing content moderation, or rules for what posts to keep up and what to take down.īut servers can dictate how they interact with one another - or whether they interact at all in a shared stream of posts. Unlike Twitter and Discord, Mastodon does not have the ability to make its users, or the people who create servers, do anything. The servers that Mastodon oversees - Mastodon Social and Mastodon Online - are funded through Patreon, a membership and subscription service platform often used by content creators.Īlthough Mastodon visually resembles Twitter, its user experience is more akin to that of Discord, a talking and texting app where people also join servers that have their own cultures and rules. Most servers are funded by the people who use them. It also has no ads Mastodon is largely crowdfunded. Unlike Twitter, Mastodon presents posts in chronological order, rather than based on an algorithm. Mastodon is a part of the Fediverse, or federated universe, a group of federated platforms that share communication protocols. Mastodon is what is known as a federated platform, meaning it is a collection of social networks - or servers - that link together but are owned by different people or groups. Twitter is a single social network, which means that people sign up for and share content only on Twitter. At least 20 third-party apps have also been developed for access to Mastodon. Mastodon can be used through a web browser or through its apps for iPhones and Android devices. Mastodon has acknowledged that being free and open source means giving up the ability to choose who can use it. The right-wing social networks Gab and Truth Social have used Mastodon’s code, which the company opposed. The way that Mastodon operates has raised issues. Those are enforced by the people who use that version. People can contribute to the code that underpins Mastodon by finding and fixing bugs, adding new features and translating its interface into different languages.Īnyone can create his or her own version of Mastodon, known as a server, with rules and regulations that apply only to that version. Being open source means that Mastodon’s original source code is publicly available and can be redistributed and changed.
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