Mastodon is part of the Fediverse, or federated universe, a group of federated platforms that share communication protocols.
Unlike Twitter, Mastodon presents posts in chronological order, rather than algorithmically. It also has no ads; Mastodon is largely funded through crowdfunding. Most servers are funded by the people who use them. The servers that Mastodon oversees – Mastodon Social and Mastodon Online – are funded through Patreon, a membership and subscription service platform commonly used by content creators.
While Mastodon is visually similar to Twitter, the user experience is more like that of Discord, a talking and texting app where people also join servers with their own cultures and rules.
Unlike Twitter and Discord, Mastodon doesn’t have the ability to get its users, or the people who build servers, to do anything. That includes implementing content moderation or rules for what posts should be tracked and what not.
But servers can dictate how they interact with each other — or whether they communicate at all in a shared stream of messages. For example, when Gab used Mastodon’s code, Mastodon Social and other independent servers blocked Gab’s server, so messages from Gab didn’t show up in the feeds of people using those servers.
How do you join Mastodon?
To join Mastodon, sign up for an account on a server. This website is home to your account, profile and feeds. Some websites allow immediate registration, while others require approval or invitation. Fediverse.party estimates that there are at least 4,000 independent servers. Many servers are current, ranging from one for “all ravers in the universe” to one for Great Britain.
Like an email account, your username contains the name of the server itself. For example, a possible username on Mastodon Social is [email protected]. Regardless of which server you sign up with, you can still communicate with people using other Mastodon servers, or you can switch to another one. Once you sign up for an account, you can post “toots,” which is the Mastodon version of tweets. You can also boost other people’s toots, the equivalent of a retweet.
