Mastodon is a social network. Some people say it’s similar to Twitter, but it’s way better.

Things I like about Mastodon:

Mastodon respects your privacy.

There’s no need to use your real name unless you feel like doing that.

Mastodon is distributed

Distributed means de-centralized. Rather than having everybody’s accounts on one giant server, Mastodon communitites – called instances – are located all around the world. You decide which instance is right for you, and join that one. Or you can run your own instance, if you want.

Mastodon is federated

All the instances of Mastodon federate with each other – this means that they exchange information. Even though you and I have joined different instances of Mastodon, we can follow each other’s accounts.

Mastodon is non-commercial

Nobody is trying to make money from you on Mastodon.

Anybody can run a Mastodon instance

Maybe you want a social network just for people in your soccer league. You can set that up. If you run a Mastodon instance, you can decide what its policies will be, who is allowed to join, etc. Your instance will share content with every other Mastodon instance, unless you block some instances you don’t like.

Want to try Mastodon?

Head over to joinMastodon.org to learn about Mastodon, and to choose a Mastodon instance to join.

It’s all pretty easy, and there are lots of helpful people around who can help you if you get stuck on any of this. I’m one of those people, so ask me if you need help figuring out anything on Mastodon.

Come find me on Mastodon!

On Mastodon, I’m @mirabilis@octodon.social.

Be the change you want to see in the world

I’m on Mastodon (and Diaspora) to be part of change – I want to be part of building online communities that are free, open-source, non-commericial, etc. Why give your content to some big corportation like Facebook, where you are the product being sold? Places like Mastodon are the alternative to that nonsense. Come join me there, and bring your friends. 🙂