7th November 2022
At the end of last week – exasperated by Twitter and the antics of its new owner – I opened a Mastodon account.
In one way, this is of no wider interest to anyone but me: it is just one person preferring one social media platform to another.
But in other ways, I do think there is something worth commenting on about this shift by me and many others – and worth assessing whether or not it is significant.
(For what it is worth, I acquired over 9k followers on there in 48h hours, and a number of legal and other commentators have joined the site too – I have called this a “Lexodus”.)
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Social media cannot be un-invented.
As long as a person has access to the internet and another person is willing to provide a platform for communication, there will be social media.
The particular platforms, however, will come and go.
Some of you will remember MySpace and Bebo and so on.
There is no reason why any one platform will always be the dominant platform.
And what is a business giant or successful commercial model at one time may not be a business giant or successful commercial model at another time.
For that is the nature of business and of technology.
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On the face of it, I should have a “stake” in Twitter.
I once spent a couple of years of my life litigating the once-famous TwitterJokeTrial case so as to explain Twitter and social media to the English legal system.
And I have acquired around 240k followers for my main Twitter account.
I am as versed in the lore and the tides and the currents and the perils of Twitter as any old sailor is of those of the sea.
So why move from there?
Well.
First, I am not moving completely – I will still use it as a medium for “broadcasting” my posts and my content elsewhere.
But Twitter is now pretty much a hellsite and a cesspit.
Every time you log in, the list of “trending” topics will make any liberal person’s heart sink.
Quote-Tweets and pile-ons and instant unpleasant replies mean that any considered conversation is all but impossible.
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Of course, much of this will be defended as “free speech!”.
But the free speech of one can mean the inhibition from speaking for others.
And that is as least as much of a free speech issue, if you think about it.
Twitter is structured so as to encourage rage-tweeting and it enables you to say the most vile things you can think of and get away with, just because you can.
I do not think it brings the best out of people.
I think social media can be done differently.
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Mastodon is different from Twitter in many ways, some of which are partly unseen and difficult to grasp.
Instead of it being one big site, it is a lot of sites with a common set of protocols.
As such, it is de-centralised.
But once you are in, you can communicate with those who joined via other “servers”.
Yes, some of the jargon is initially inaccessible – but so were RTs, DMs, QTs, #hashtags, and so on, once upon a time.
And each of those servers is independent, and they form a federation as an aggregate.
This means decision-making is decentralised and different servers can have different rules and policies.
And if one server turns vile – or allows vile stuff – then it can be rejected by the others.
As a liberal I find this system, with its in-built checks and balances, a lot more attractive and welcoming than Twitter.
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And what about in practice?
So far, the conversations and engagement on the new site have been pleasant and constructive.
As a worked example, click here for a question about Brexit which led to many helpful and informative replies.
Yes, some of the replies don’t directly engage the terms of the question, but you will see there is a general civility and calmness that contrasts with Twitter.
The longer character limits help too.
So far – and it is still an early stage – Mastodon seems a serious site for serious conversations.
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You may not want to join Mastodon – and I know several of you are not on Twitter.
That may be wise.
But if you do want to try a social media platform wired to avoid many of the unlikeable things about Twitter then Mastodon is worth having a try.
I cannot recommend any particular server – and there are glitches for many when they try to join, and so you may need to be patient.
And if you do join, do say hello and mention this post.
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