Start with the Twitter alternative Mastodon
Twitter is going haywire. Many no longer only doubt the service, they want to change. No problem. Thats how it works.
Berlin – Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter, nothing has been the same there. Anyone looking for an alternative to the crisis-ridden network will quickly end up with Mastodon. Mastowa? Mastodon is an alternative, free short message service. Getting started is not difficult. How it works and what the service can do:
What kind of name is that?
A mastodon is a primitive, elephant-like proboscis animal that became extinct around 10,000 years ago at the end of the Ice Age. That’s why mastodon is horned and not twittered like in the realm of the Twitter bird.
Eugen Rochko, who founded Mastodon in 2016 and has been developing it since then, came up with the name, free of advertising and tracking. The entire software development is funded by donations.
What can Mastodon do?
Actually everything that Twitter also offers. You can follow others and see their posts called Tröts (Toots). Conversely, you can write your own postings in your own home feed, including images, videos, audios or surveys. If necessary, of course, with restrictions on who can see the posting.
There are also direct messages, hashtags (#) and trends. And a kind of retweeting, which is called boosting here. Security is not neglected either: two-factor authentication for secure login is on board.
What is different from Twitter?
First of all, the start page, on which you can find posts from all the people or organizations you follow, sorted by time. Mastodon strictly adheres to the chronology. So there are real timelines and no opaque, algorithm-controlled display of posts.
“Your home page should be filled with what matters most to you, not stuff that some company thinks you should see,” reads the mission statement on the Mastodon site. There is a promise: “With Mastodon you get control back.”
Are there any other differences?
Yes. Mastodon is a decentralized social network, connected and powered by open source free software. Whether it’s an organization or an individual, anyone who wants to can run an independent Mastodon server, also called an instance.
This means that control does not lie with one company or one person, but in many hands. And anyone who wants to take part can freely choose which server, i.e. which community, to create their account on.
That’s why Mastodon also has the “Local” view, which only shows posts from people who belong to your own community. The “Federation” view, on the other hand, expands the view to all postings from all servers. Like Home, Local and Federation are organized as timelines.
By the way, a Tröt is limited to 500 characters by default. A single tweet on Twitter can be a maximum of 280 characters long.
Which server should I log into?
It depends on. But first of all it is important to know: Via each server you can basically also see all content from all other servers and interact with all other users. That’s the purpose of the Federation view.
However, each server operator can block other servers. And she can set rules that then apply to the users of her own server. So it makes sense to look for a community that you can not only identify with thematically, but whose moderation you generally like.
Are there server directories?
Yes. A server directory can be found on the official Mastodon site. It only contains servers that are committed to moderation against racism, sexism and transphobia (https://joinmastodon.org/de/covenant).
Another possible starting point for your own Mastodon account is the “Instances.social” page, which currently lists more than 3700 servers worldwide. If you answer a few questions, you will be presented with a list of servers that might suit you.
Although you can register directly with many servers, there are also instances where an invitation must first be requested, which no longer accept new members or which are basically closed – such as the instance “Social.bund.de”, which the Federal Data Protection Commissioner set up for federal agencies.
What if I later find a community I like better?
No problem. On the one hand, multiple accounts on different Mastodon servers are possible at the same time. On the other hand, an existing account, including followers, can be moved to a new account on another server at any time. Instructions can be found directly in the account settings or in the Mastodon documentation.
In the settings under “Import and Export” you can also download the other data categories (except media) in CSV format, such as lists or bookmarks. And not just to import them into the new account if you plan to move.
Regular backups are also important in the event that the instance on which you are logged in unexpectedly shuts down. All data categories including media storage can be downloaded as an archive once a week.
But how exactly do I start now?
The selection of the server was already half the battle. Now you have to click on the “Create account” button on the page of the desired instance, accept the respective server rules, enter an e-mail address and specify a display and profile name (with the @ in front) including a password. Finished.
The username is extended with the name of the community domain so that communication and searches across server boundaries are possible (example: @[email protected]).
What are the first steps?
After registering, you complete your profile (picture, background, interests) and adjust notifications and privacy settings in the settings. For example, you can tick “Blocked Profile” if you only want followers who need to send a follow request, which you can then approve – or not.
You can also specify that your own posts should not go to the public timeline by default. Nevertheless, when writing a posting, you always have the option of making a different setting for this post individually, using the lock symbol.
As a first tröt we recommend a short self-introduction with the hashtag “#neuhier”. For questions from newcomers, “#new questions” has become a common hashtag.
How can I find my Twitter contacts on Mastodon?
There are services such as Fedifinder or Debirdify that can analyze your own Twitter profile to see which contacts are also on Mastodon. This information is obtained as a list, which can also be saved in CSV format and then imported into Mastodon.
Those who store their Mastodon profile name in their own short description or in their display name on Twitter make it easier for such services, but also for everyone else who wants to find someone on Mastodon using the search field. Don’t forget: In order for it to work, the profile name plus community domain must be specified, such as “@[email protected]”, not just “@profilname”.
Are there also apps?
Yes. In addition to the web app and the official applications for Android and iOS that have existed since April 2022, there are various third-party applications for various platforms and operating systems. dpa
Reference-www.ingame.de