mastodon

Mastodon is a social media platform similar to Twitter, except that it is decentralised across countless instances set up by different communities. Each instance of Mastodon is governed by its own rules and moderators, but users can follow and interact with people from other instances as well. The world of Mastodon instances (and other software they can communicate with) is collectively called the fediverse.

Unlike other alternative social media platforms, the fediverse is host to many anarchist, BIPOC, and queer people. Bigots and fascists are only welcomed by a few malicious instances, which other instances 'defederate' with, essentially cutting them off from everyone else. As a result, the culture of the fediverse is overwhelmingly kind and well-meaning.

The ōtepoti.dev Mastodon instance is a home for local radicals on the fediverse. You can read our instance rules here. We're just getting started, and we'd love for you to join :)

Mastodon can be used through the browser, or through one of the various mobile apps. For Android phones, most people recommend Tusky, and for iPhones, there's Metatext. When signing up through an app, enter 'social.otepoti.dev' as your instance, then enter your desired username, password, etc.

There are a few ways to find people to follow. You can go to the 'Local' tab to see the latest toots (posts) by people on our instance. You can also go to the 'Federated' tab to see the latest toots from across the fediverse that our instance is aware of; that is, toots by every user that is followed by someone on our instance. Global toots and users can also be searched using the search box. Finally, there are services like Twitodon that automatically find the Mastodon accounts of people you follow on Twitter, if they have one.

Accounts on Mastodon are like email addresses, with a username part and domain part seperated by an at symbol. When you sign up to our instance, other people can find you with '@username@otepoti.dev'. For example, there's @kat@otepoti.dev.

Mastodon is public. Although it is beyond corporate control and government censorship, your posts are still available for anyone in the world to see, like on Twitter. Don't post things that you're not comfortable with cops and fascists seeing.

The fediverse has been around for a while. Although it has recently gained a lot of popularity after Elon Musk's aquisition of Twitter, the fediverse has existed since 2008. Like on Twitter, there are conventions and expectations that have developed over the years. For example, users are expected to place certain types of content, like discussions of racism and abuse, behind content warnings. You are also expected to add captions to images for the visually impared. It's important to remember that you are new to this space, and although you are most welcome, people will get annoyed if you consistently ignore these practices.