pluralistic.net
pluralistic.net
History is repeating in the social media world and Cory Doctorow provides the context. Chokepoint capitalism is a good term for something I didn't have a term for before.
mastodon
lil.law.harvard.edu
lil.law.harvard.edu"I’m not sure yet where I personally lie on the spectrum between the fediverse view and my default of learned helplessness in the face of unrelenting capitalism, but exposure to Mastodon changed my thinking about this project. I stopped referring to the people who would fork my repository as “users” and started calling them “participants”—a term which assigns them more agency and a sense of belonging to a collective whole."Thoughtful essay by Liza Daly about how the existence of an alternative way of being online helped inform decisions about protecting people online.
WNYC Studios
WNYC Studios"Even if the attention of the world were to move away from [Mastodon] it will absolutely sustain itself because it only requires a bunch of committed people to say, 'hey I want to do this'. Things like that are very robust."Brooke Gladstone interviewing Clive Thompson about what Mastodon is and why anyone should care.
decrypt.coMy alternate headline for this: Twitter CEO makes the case that Mastodon has a superior architecture for social media; forms group to invent it. The Mastosphere has been chatting about this quite a bit with worries about embrace, extend, and extinguish. It wasn’t received well is what I’m trying to say. Mastodon BDFL Eugen was more diplomatic.
github.comIf you're Mastodon-curious (and who isn't these days?) this is a great place to start. I especially enjoyed the answer to How do I establish my brand's presence on Mastodon? It would be so easy to veer into cynicism and absolutes with this question and the tone is weary but hopeful. I'm also social media weary but still hopeful about Mastodon. I really enjoy it and I think the folks who steer it are making good decisions.
runyourown.social
Darius Kazemi describes running a modified Mastodon instance for 50 friends. This is my kind of heresy:
"I'd like to advance the notion that software does not have to scale, and in fact software can be better if it is not built to scale."I think his vision of thousands of small communities that federate would be a better future for social media.
Medium
I like this framing of the Mastodon vs. All Social Media story. Mastodon doesn't have to supplant Twitter to be a success. If people like me enjoy using it (and I do!) then it's working on some level. Yet every article about Mastodon says, "it has a long way to go to supplant Twitter." When you look at raw number of users, that's true, but do we need massive centralized networks? This recent Mastodon 101 article falls into the same framing trap, but it's a good summary nonetheless: The quest to design an ethical social media platform.
iTunes
This is a nice, new iOS Mastodon app. I'm going back and forth between Mast and Amaroq and I can't decide which is the one Mastodon app to rule them all yet. If you're wondering what Mastodon is, you can't go wrong with Laura Kalbag's summary: What is Mastodon and why should I use it?