With all the fuss about Twitter, Elon Musk, Zuckerburg, Facebook and the change to Meta, it’s easy to forget how much social media has become a part of everyday life.
Like many others I am leaving Twitter, and though I still use Facebook I have always limited my time there. Facebook holds relatives and friends hostage and it is not easy to leave. Maybe someday. And I suspect that it’s largely because of Musk that the day may be getting closer.
Elon Musk and his all over the map right wing leanings have pushed many of us somewhere we likely should have gone a long time ago. To a more decentralized web, which I can only hope will someday get us closer to the early promise of the world wide web.
While living our online lives in corporate owned echo chambers we have learned that they can be dangerous places for women, the lgbtq community, minorities and anyone from a marginalized community.
But because I Iive in a fairly isolated rural community I enjoyed the connections with the wider world on Twitter. It became my news feed as well as a way to reach out to people I would otherwise never have known. I cannot however stay there and since so many others have also moved to Mastodon I have no reason to return.
I am there as @elmasmixedmedia@mstdn.ca. Mastodon is part of the Fediverse which I believe has been around for some time. There is so much to learn about both.
In the past I avoided open source social media platforms like Mastodon because they seemed too complicated and I didn’t think I would find many connections there. Most people my age can only just navigate Facebook.
But Mastodon hasn’t turned out to be all that hard to use or understand. I also enjoy being in a space where moderators are part of a like minded community. So here’s a link for anyone thinking of leaving the bird site for Mastodon.
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/08/mastodon-quick-start-guide/
Read it then just dive in. It may take a little time, but there are communities worth joining. Keep looking until you find one that suits you.
And for anyone wondering what on earth the Fediverse is, here’s a Wikipedia definition;
“The fediverse (a portmanteau of “federation” and “universe”) is an ensemble of federated (i.e. interconnected) servers that are used for web publishing (i.e. social networking, microblogging, blogging, or websites) and file hosting, but which, while independently hosted, can communicate with each other.”