Back on the Mammoth, having re-installed Mastodon.
You don't have to set up your own instance. You can simply join any of the bigger mastodon servers. If you want to make your own, it is still a pain to set up, but the instructions do work if you follow them carefully. Here.
The larger servers are struggling a little right now, after the Musk take-over of twitter has been announced. Seems a lot of people think Mastodon is viable alternative. It may be, but it is different.
It is much more of a "social" network in that you have to socialise, and talk to people, to get followers and find who to follow. But no adverts and no "algorithms".
But I am here, on Mastodon, again, toot.me.uk/@revk so do follow me if you like any of the stuff I do/say.
P.S. As this is a new server, some servers have the old stuff cached in some way, so I may have to follow you first to get it to sort itself out. Let me know if you have problems following me.
Ironically, Musk has just announced that he wants to add end-to-end encryption to Twitter, which is a feature that your Mastodon page specifically warns is missing from Mastodon.
ReplyDeleteGetting started on Mastodon seems complicated. There are hundreds of servers in various countries and languages, each with their own individual content rules. Many of the large ones seem to be governed by legal jurisdictions with far greater speech restrictions than we have in the UK, such as German law.
I would like to find a server whose content policy aligns with the law, but does not go further, except perhaps for the removal of bots and spam. Again, this is something that Musk says he wants for Twitter. It will be deeply amusing if the billionaire-controlled Twitter ends up freer and more privacy-protecting that than "free" alternative that is supposed to replace it.
It does feel very complicated, and throws up a lot of barriers to any non-tech minded folk (which could be argued to be a benefit, in a pre-Eternal September kind of way)
DeleteOf course, if you don't like the rules and jurisdictions available on the mainstream servers the whole *point* of Mastodon is that you can take your data wherever you like, and even have your own server with your own policies.
It's free (as in speech) but not free (as in beer), which is kind of the polar opposite of 'traditional' social media.