Why Mastodon?

By Moopie Curran, 20 February, 2023

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Other Apple Chat

Hi,
Lately, I've been hearing buzz about mastodon. So my question is why mastodon? What's so good about it over Facebook or twitter? Is it just for the blind, or do media outlets use it? And if I do end up starting to use it, what mastodon clients are people using?

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Comments

By Gar on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

Hi,
Mastodon is not just a blindy space. However, the users I have encountered have been far more open than those of the other two platforms you mentioned. AltText is much, much more readily available, and the tools for discovery are unmatched. I also appreciate how easy it was for me to slide into another community, rather than boxing me into the blind community as Twitter seemed to.
In my opinion, Mastodon takes features that were popularized by other platforms and showcases them at their full potential, such as the ability to follow individual hashtags to see any and all posts which incorporate it into them. This can make it easy to follow specific topics, like sports. It is also far easier to mute hashtags that you aren't interested in, and in most cases those mutes are universal, rather than you having to set them up again and again for every Twitter client/session you may have used.
As for what client I'm using? I started out using MetaText, but that client is no longer being maintained. I used "Toot!" but I had issues with its interface, things I didn't like. I'm now using the Mona beta and I can't see myself using anything else any time soon.
I hope this helps.

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

I really like Metatext on iOS and Pinafore on the web. Some instances disabled critical features like keyboard shortcuts (glaring at you meow.social). Pinafore adds them right back in. The most daunting part of it is choosing your instance, but it's a bit like choosing an email service. There's lots, but they all talk to each other, and you can see all of them together. I quite like it. I dunno if blind users are flocking to one in particular, but I know of one or two who have gone to chitter.xyz. There are hundreds to choose from based on interest and community.

By Gar on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

There are a few blindy specific instances, the largest of them being draconscave.space I believe. I myself am registered to mindly.social, which is an amazing, inclusive space.

By Miguel Orduno on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

In my opinion, I find that Mastodon is welcoming. I find that new users can ask questions without being afraid of being judged. I also see people interacting with each other, instead of being told how to do it by and algorithm. These are some of the reasons why I like Mastodon. The clients I am using now are Toot, but I’m currently testing the Mona beta as well. If you need help with all this, feel free to use my contact form on this website to get in touch with me.

By Jonathan Candler on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

Love mastodon mainly for the decentralized part of it. Currently running my own mastodon instance but for now, it's more like a personal instance as I can do whatever I want with it However, with that being said, Mona is great!

By Moopie Curran on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

I typed "Metatext" into the app store, but what popped up was mastodon". Did the app name change?

By Holger Fiallo on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

When I was using twitter, never use a third app to log in on it in my iPhone, iPad or my regular window PC. No issues. Not sure about the app for it.

By Gar on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

Moopie, what country are you in? That could be the reason you can't find it. I looked for it in the app store and it was the first result.

By Karina Velazquez on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

Hi, I have seen that Mona is the new project from the older spring twitter app, but I entered in the testflight page of it and it says that only by invitation.
How could I get and invitation to use that client? do i have to buy spring in order to get Mona?

By the way, I joined Mastodon yesterday and although I'm getting use to it, it has been nice for me, the only thing is that at the moment in spanish there are not much contents of serious news papers and media to follow.

kind regards.

By Holger Fiallo on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

Media and politicians are not using it. They still use twitter. Specially outside the US. Government agency outside use twitter or instangram. The number maybe going down on user in the US due to the ignorant and nuts owner but outside still using twitter. I am not using nothing at this time. Sad.

By Ekaj on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

Hi Moopy and others on this thread. I've been using Mastodon off and on for just a little while, and it's not bad. Tweesecake is what I use to access it, but I can't for the life of me get the downloadable Tweesecake app to work. Perhaps the version just released fixes the issue, but I have yet to check on that. I might consider trying out one of the other apps, but I think what sold me on Tc is that in addition to Mastodon it supposedly works with other sites. I cannot quite wrap my head around part of Mastodon, but I'm sure that'll change the more I use it. Mushroom FM is also on there now, so people might wanna pay them a visit if not already done so.

By Dawn 👩🏻‍🦯 on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

Ok, I have a question of my own. I used Twitter for a bit, (before it flew off course) and, don't really know why, but, I never liked it. So, I'm starting to wonder:
If someone used Twitter and didn't like it, for whatever reason, would they like Mastodon, or not?

By kool_turk on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

It may be decentralised, but doesn't it feel like an echo chamber?

Everyone agreeing with each other, depending on what instance you're on.

I know you can talk to people on other servers, or instances as it's called on Mastodon.

I'm just not sure if it's something I would use.

In case you haven't noticed, I haven't jumpped on the bandwagon just yet.

Would people even have jumpped ship if it weren't for the whole Twitter thing?

By Holger Fiallo on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

What I like about it is that I could use the app in my phone and iPad and the web in my windows PC. Mostly I use my PC to respond to the tweets. It was easy, no third party and it was centralize.

By Dennis Westphal on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

Hi,

I have heard that point often in the past months. But I honestly don't get why that should be the case. There was only one case in which very far right people got together and tried to overtake the hole thing like they more or less did with other social media plattforms. So that instance they all used got cut off. They still have their own echo chamber in their instance.

In general you can disagree with others on mastodon but you should do this in a manner that is respectful. Differing opinions are actually very welcome as long as they do not discriminate other people. Or put in other words: As long as you are willing to considder other world views, you should absolutely be fine on mastodon regardless of political opinion or other subjective views.

If you howver have views that is based of other beings are of lesser worth to you, then others may be right to don't wanting nothing to do with you. Is that an echo chamber or just what would happen in the so called real world to?

By Karina Velazquez on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

Well I have been using mastodon for 4 days.
now i'm using the Mona beta public version and it is very nice, although I prefer to toot (mastodon verb for twitting) from my pc but for reading toots is nice.
Mastodon is not an echo chamber, at least not if you choose a generl topic instance and although you choose one with a main topic, I don't think every one would be thinking the same of everything, it would be just that they will have a topic in common.
Then yes, if you never liked twitter certainly you wont like mastodon.
And regarding media and politisians well yes, politisians are not using mastodon yet as much as twitter with all its don'ts, but media is using it, and I like that, because my main usage from twitter was to get the latest news on topics I like. The only don't here, is that you have to get the exact account for the media or person you want to follow because their search database doesn't give you the approximated result for a name or topic, so to find the account of media is difficult unless you start looking for toots randomly and with some luck you find toots from that media (and that's how I have found them).
Another interesting thing, at least while using mona, is that while my account is based on an instance, I can still follow other communities or instances so you could always get toots from other instances you find interesting as alternative options.
So in conclusion: mastodon works mostly on a twitter basis but it is not twitter, is mastodon and has its own characteristics like instances. But if you could be pacient, it could become the next twitter once users get more and more attracted by it and thus, twitter was not built in one week, so at the start no many celebrities and media were there, but now they are, so Mastodon could have the same future.
hth.
@[email protected]

By Gar on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

I can understand why this point gets brought up, but I can also confirm that it's not an echo chamber. Yes, people may talk about the same things, depending on what instance you're on, but no one will agree with you on absolutely everything. That's just human nature.
Facebook and Twitter have a lot of negativity surrounding them because they are for profit companies. Engagement drives clicks, and clicks drive profits. Mastodon however is not for profit, and the only "algorithm" is that of human interest. Posts will never be promoted or recommended to you, you will only see something that someone you follow boosts unless you look elsewhere like at another instances local timeline or federated feed. This means that you can engage with people as much as you want, regardless of your relationship with them. If you want to stick to a very small group of people? Follow some and stay in your home timeline. If you feel a little more curious about what others are talking about? Check out your instance's local timeline. Want to take a chance and see what you might learn? Go all the way and check out the federated feed.
If you're tired of hearing about something, i.e the super bowl? It's a lot easier to filter that crap out on Mastodon than any other platform has ever made it, too.
The point here is that the control, your experience, is yours. It is not force fed to you by someone with selfish motives.

By Siobhan on Friday, March 3, 2023 - 07:38

I'm now @[email protected] I think? Anyway I'm now looking for a Mac app I have follower requests set up for now until I get better at it. Warning, I am R rated a lot and even worse sometimes in humor so if that offends, please don't join me.

By Sara on Wednesday, March 27, 2024 - 07:38

Hi everyone!
I’m looking to get started on Mastodon but not sure where to begin. Do I just create an account and choose a server? How do I know which server to pick? Can I switch servers later without making a new account? Any tips on getting started would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

By Tyler on Wednesday, March 27, 2024 - 07:38

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

To join Mastodon, you create an account on the server you want to join; you can later export your account to a different server if you wish. You can find a list of servers, and narrow them down by regions and topic areas at joinmastodon.org. There are other servers on the Internet not listed on this website, but the ones listed have agreed to follow a basic standard of moderation against racism, sexism, and transphobia. Beyond that, however, different servers have different policies and cultures for what is and isn't permitted.

HTH

By Sara on Wednesday, March 27, 2024 - 07:38

Thanks. I’ve already set up an account.

By the way, here’s the link to my profile:

https://tooters.org/@SaraVonglasenapp

This server seems great, but I have a question: how would I go about switching servers if I ever wanted to? Can I import this account?