Since Elon Musk took over Twitter in November 2022, there has been an exodus of people leaving Twitter. Some have moved to a new platform completely, while others, like myself, have moved to another social media platform while still using Twitter.
One of the Social Media platforms people from Twitter are joining is Mastodon, it might look like Twitter and have some similarities, but it is a different platform. In this article, I’ll look at some of the key differences and give you my impression of Mastodon.
What is Mastodon?
Mastodon is a Social media platform hosted on separate servers; each server is known as an instance. These different instances link together to form a Federated network similar to Email called the Fediverse. Further information on how email works can be found in our introductory guide to Email. As Mastodon instances are connected, you can follow people on any connected instance.
How is Mastodon different from Twitter?
As we have already discussed, Mastodon isn’t a single service like Twitter but is provided by groups or individuals running many Mastodon instances. This shouldn’t be a concern because Mastodon is a federated network like Email.
Another significant difference between Mastodon and Twitter is Mastodon has no algorithm, unlike Twitter which uses the algorithm to send you the Tweets that it thinks you will read and therefore read the following Tweet.
The lack of an algorithm means that Mastodon works a bit differently, and on the Mastodon web app, you have access to three different feeds. Your home feed contains any posts (tweets) sent or re-sent by the people you follow, local feed, which is anything posted-reposted on your account instance. Lastly, the Federated feed can get nuts as it includes all content published in the Fediverse.
To stop the Federated and even local feed from jittering, I turned off the feeds from automatically updating.
As there is no algorithm, you are encouraged to re-post anything you find interesting, which helps distribute content across the Fediverse.
Cultural differences between Twitter and Mastodon
I wanted to separate the cultural differences between Mastodon and Twitter as they can be pretty striking. Mastodon is a more respectful platform, and proper debate is encouraged and probably helped with the 500-character limit, which is about double the character limit on Twitter.
It is also considered good manners to add a warning to content that might offend others, such as discussing politics or sports. It also has the benefit of allowing others to read posts that they want, streamlining the use of Mastodon.
Conclusion
I’m planning to stay on Twitter, but I will continue to use Mastodon as I like the vibe. It has made me realise how noisy Twitter is.