Mastodon (software)

Mastodon is a free and open-source self-hosted social networking service. It allows anyone to host their own server node in the network, and its various separately operated user bases are federated across many different servers. These servers are connected as a federated social network, allowing users from different servers to interact with each other seamlessly. Mastodon is a part of the wider Fediverse, allowing its users to also interact with users on different open platforms that support the same protocol,[3] such as PeerTube and Friendica.

Mastodon
Developer(s)Eugen Rochko, et al.
Initial release16 March 2016 (2016-03-16)[1]
Stable release
3.1.4 / May 14, 2020
Repository
Written inRuby on Rails, JavaScript (React.js, Redux)
Operating systemCross-platform
PlatformWeb, iOS, Android, Linux and PureOS, BSD, Sailfish OS, macOS, Windows
Available in69 languages[2]
List of languages
Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Asturian, Basque, Bengali, Breton, Bulgarian, Catalan, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Hong Kong Traditional Chinese, Corsican, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ido, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kabyle, Kannada, Kazakh, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Malayalam, Marathi, Norwegian, Nynorsk, Occitan, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Sardinian, Serbian (Cyrillic), Serbian (Latin), Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Argentine Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh
TypeMicroblogging
LicenseAGPLv3
Websitejoinmastodon.org

Mastodon has microblogging features similar to Twitter, or Weibo, although it is distinct from them, and unlike a typical software as a service platform, it is not centrally hosted. Each user is a member of a specific, independently operated server. Users post (by default[4]) short messages called "toots" for others to see, and can adjust each of their post's privacy settings. The specific privacy options may vary between sites, but typically include direct messaging, followers only, public but not listed in the public feed, and public and posted to the public feed. The Mastodon mascot is a brown or grey woolly mammoth, sometimes depicted using a tablet or smartphone.

Because there isn't a single central server for Mastodon, each operating server has its own code of conduct, terms of service, and moderation policies instead. This differs from traditional social networks by allowing users to choose a specific server which has policies they agree with, or to leave a server that has policies they disagree with, without losing access to Mastodon's social network.

Functionality and features

Mastodon servers run social networking software that is capable of communicating using the ActivityPub standard, which has been implemented since version 1.6.[5] A Mastodon user can therefore interact with users on any other server in the Fediverse that supports ActivityPub.

Mastodon mascot with a smartphone

Since version 2.9.0 Mastodon offers a single column mode for new users by default.[6] In advanced mode Mastodon approximates the microblogging user experience of TweetDeck. Users post short-form status messages for others to see. On Mastodon, these messages can include up to 500 text-based characters, an extension of Twitter's 280-character limit,[7] although numerous Mastodon servers forked the source code to allow a larger character limit. Posts are called "toots" instead of "tweets", as is the case on Twitter.[8]

Users join a specific Mastodon server, rather than a single website or application. The servers are connected as nodes in a network, and each server can administrate its own rules, account privileges, and whether to share messages to and from other servers. The largest operating server (excluding Gab), Pawoo, hosts 545,000+ users as of May 2019. Other servers are based on communal interests, such as Internet memes, video games, or technology.[8]

The social media software includes a number of specific privacy features. Each message has a variety of privacy options available, and users can choose whether the post is public or private. Public messages display on a global feed, known as a timeline, and private messages are only shared on the timelines of the user's followers. Messages can also be marked as unlisted from timelines or direct between users. Users can also mark their accounts as completely private. In the timeline, messages can display with an optional "content warning" feature, which requires readers to click on the content to reveal the rest of the message. Mastodon servers have used this feature to hide spoilers, trigger warnings, and not safe for work (NSFW) content, though some accounts use the feature to hide links and thoughts others might not want to read.[8]

Mastodon aggregates messages in local and federated timelines in real-time. The local timeline shows messages from users on a singular server, while the federated timeline shows messages across all participating Mastodon servers. Users can communicate across connected Mastodon servers with usernames similar in format to full email addresses.[8]

In early 2017, journalists distinguished Mastodon from Twitter for its approach to combating harassment, one of Twitter's largest issues.[8] Mastodon uses community-based moderation, in which each server can limit, or filter out undesirable types of content. For example, Mastodon.social, bans content that is illegal in Germany or France, including Nazi symbolism, Holocaust denial and discrimination. Several other servers do this too. Servers can also choose to limit, or filter out messages with disparaging content. Mastodon's founder Eugen Rochko believes that small, closely related communities police toxic behavior more effectively than a large company's small safety team.[9] Users can also block and report others to administrators, much like on Twitter.[10][8]

In September 2018, with the release of version 2.5, that features redesigned public profile pages, Mastodon marked its 100th release.[11] Then, at the end of October, Mastodon 2.6 came out, introducing the possibilities of verified profiles and live, in-stream link previews for images and videos.[12] Since January 2019, it is possible to search for multiple hashtags at once, instead of searching for just a single hashtag, as was the case before the release of version 2.7. Version 2.7 also has more robust moderation capabilities for server administrators and moderators, while accessibility, such as contrast for users with sight issues, has also been improved.[13] The ability for users to create and vote in polls, as well as a new invitation system to manage registrations have been integrated in April 2019.[14] When media content, such as images, is marked as sensitive, it's now blurred.[15] The most significant addition to Mastodon's functionality in June 2019 has been an optional single-column view in version 2.9.[16] This view is now displayed by default to all new users, although it can be changed to the original column-based view in settings.

Technology

Mastodon is written as a free, web-based software for federated microblogging, which anybody can contribute code to, and which anyone can run on their own server infrastructure, if they wish, or join servers run by other people[17] within the fediverse network.[18] Its server-side technology is powered by Ruby on Rails and Node.js, and its front end is written in React.js and Redux.[19] The service is interoperable with the decentralized social networks and platforms which use the ActivityPub protocol between each other.[20] Since version 3.0, Mastodon dropped previous support for OStatus.[21] [22]

Client apps for mobile devices, desktop computers, and web browsers interacting with the Mastodon API have been released for a range of operating systems, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS.[23]

Adoption

While Mastodon was first released in October 2016, the service began to expand in late March and early April 2017.[24] The Verge wrote that the community at this time was small and that it had yet to attract the personalities that keep users at Twitter.[8] The global use has risen from 766,500 users as of 1 August 2017,[25] to 1 million users on 1 December 2017. In November 2017 artists, writers and entrepreneurs such as Chuck Wendig, John Scalzi, Melanie Gillman and later John O'Nolan joined in.[26][27][28][29][30] Another spike in popularity came in March, through April 2018, due to the concerns about user privacy raised by the #deletefacebook effort.[31]

Mastodon, along with a number of other alternative social media sites, saw a large uptick in membership, gaining thousands of new members in the period of a few hours compared to dozens in days prior,[32] following Tumblr's announcement of intent in early December 2018 to ban all sensitive content from their site.[33]

Many left leaning Indian users shifted to Mastodon from Twitter after complaining that Twitter moderated only the accounts of lower castes.[34]

Forks

In 2017, Pixiv launched a Mastodon-based social media pawoo[35], however the service has been moved to another Japanese company, called Russell, in 2019.

In April 2019, computer manufacturer Purism released a fork of Mastodon named Librem Social.[36][37]

Gab, a controversial social network with a far-right user base, changed its software platform to a fork of Mastodon and became the largest Mastodon node in July 2019.[38] Gab's adoption of Mastodon allowed Gab to be accessed from third-party Mastodon applications, although four of them blocked Gab shortly after the change.[39] In response, Mastodon stated that it was "completely opposed to Gab’s project and philosophy", and criticized Gab for attempting "to monetize and platform racist content while hiding behind the banner of free speech" and for "paywalling basic features that are freely available on Mastodon".[40]

In October 2019, the Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation released a fork of Mastodon named Civiq.Social.[41]

See also

References
  1. "v0.1.0". 16 March 2016. Retrieved 18 July 2019 – via GitHub.
  2. "Mastodon translations in Crowdin". Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  3. "Mastodon launches their ActivityPub support, and a new CR!". ActivityPub.rocks. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  4. Numerous servers use a larger character limit.
  5. "ActivityPub IndieWeb". indieweb.org. Retrieved 12 October 2019.
  6. "Mastodon 2.9". Official Mastodon Blog. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  7. "Twitter just doubled the character limit for tweets to 280". Theverge.com. 26 September 2017. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  8. Farokhmanesh, Megan (7 April 2017). "A beginner's guide to Mastodon, the hot new open-source Twitter clone". The Verge. Retrieved 8 April 2017.
  9. "One Mammoth of a Job: An Interview with Eugen Rochko of Mastodon". medium.com/we-distribute. 9 July 2018. Retrieved 5 October 2019.
  10. Rochko, Eugen. "Learning from Twitter's mistakes". Medium.com. Archived from the original on 10 December 2018. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  11. "Mastodon 2.5 released: Highlights from the changelog". blog.joinmastodon.org. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  12. "Mastodon 2.6 released: Highlights from the changelog". Blog.joinmastodon.org. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  13. "Mastodon 2.7 released: Highlights from the changelog". Blog.joinmastodon.org. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  14. "Mastodon 2.8 Highlights from the changelog". blog.joinmastodon.org. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  15. "Improving support for adult content on Mastodon". blog.joinmastodon.org. Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  16. "Introducing the single-column layout". blog.joinmastodon.org. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
  17. "Mastodon Instances — The Fediverse Network".
  18. Rochko, Eugen (1 April 2017). "Welcome to Mastodon". Hacker Noon. Archived from the original on 12 September 2018. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  19. "Installation". joinmastodon.org. Archived from the original on 27 December 2018. Retrieved 26 December 2018.
  20. "Release v1.6.0". GitHub. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  21. Your self-hosted, globally interconnected microblogging community: tootsuite/mastodon, TootSuite, 4 October 2019, retrieved 4 October 2019
  22. "Mastodon to drop OStatus support". wedistribute.org. Retrieved 5 October 2019.
  23. "List of apps". GitHub. Retrieved 2 July 2017.
  24. Steele, Chandra (6 April 2017). "What Is Mastodon and Will It Kill Twitter?". PCMag Australia.
  25. "dynamic status of mastodon". Eliotberriott.com. Retrieved 16 April 2017.
  26. "Mastodon Users (bot), December 1, 2017, 4:00 PM". Mastodon.social. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  27. Bonnington, Christina (22 November 2016). "Mastodon is an open source, decentralized version of Twitter". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  28. "Mastodon Is Like Twitter Without Nazis, So Why Are We Not Using It?". Motherboard. 4 April 2017. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  29. Tidey, Jimmy (6 January 2017). "What would Twitter be if it adopted Wikipedia's politics?". openDemocracy. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  30. "Are You on Mastodon Yet? Social Network of Our Own – ProfHacker - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education". Chronicle.com. 28 November 2016. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  31. POST, Brian Fung, WASHINGTON. "Facebook's poor care of customer data is driving users to social networks such as Mastodon". www.philly.com.
  32. "User Count Bot". Mastodon.social. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  33. Gibson, Kate (3 December 2018). "Tumblr banning adult content starting Dec. 17, citing porn concerns". CBS News. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  34. Kapur, Manavi. "This chart from Mastodon's creator shows just how angry some Indian Twitter users are". Quartz India. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
  35. "Mastodon hosted on pawoo.net". Pawoo. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
  36. Lunduke, Bryan (30 April 2019). "Purism Launches Librem One, a Suite of Privacy-Protecting, No-Track, No-Ad Apps and Services". Linux Journal. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  37. Kißling, Kristian; Linux Magazin; Grüner, Sebastian (2 May 2019). "Librem One: Purism startet Angebot für sichere Online-Dienste" [Purism Launches Secure Online Services Offering]. Golem.de (in German). Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  38. Makuch, Ben; Koebler, Jason; Mead, Derek (11 July 2019). "Mastodon Was Designed to Be a Nazi-Free Twitter—Now It's the Exact Opposite". Vice. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  39. Robertson, Adi (12 July 2019). "How the biggest decentralized social network is dealing with its Nazi problem". The Verge. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  40. Eleanor (4 July 2019). "Statement on Gab's fork of Mastodon". Official Mastodon Blog. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  41. "Announcing the launch of Project Civiq". Fourth Estate. 24 October 2019. Retrieved 24 October 2019.
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