After Elon Musk took over Twitter, said verification would soon cost users $8 a month and laid off around 3,700 employees to manage the app’s debt, celebrities, journalists, influencers and their followers have quickly begun a mass exodus from the app.
But where are they going? Well, many noteworthy people, including Stephen Fry, Greta Thunberg, and Kathy Griffin, are now using another social mediaplatform to share their every thought with the world instead: Mastodon. Here’s everything you need to know…
What is Mastodon?
The confusing thing about Mastodon is that it runs on a collection of servers around the world that are linked by tech and called the ‘Fediverse’. Your posts will no longer be called tweets but ‘toots’ and you sign up for a specific server that’s run by whoever set it up (usually volunteers) who are keeping it afloat through donations or their own cash as there are no paid-for ads on the feed at all.
Each server has its own rules and regulations on who can join and how it’s moderated. So, you could wind up on a really fun server—or potentially one that’s not very safe depending on where you enter the Fediverse.
But usually, people pick their server based on location and interests and Mastodon does make all users sign their ‘covenant’ which claims there’ll be ‘active moderation against racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia’.
Can I follow people on different Mastodon servers?
Don’t worry, whichever server you join you can still follow your friends and favourite celebs who have joined Mastodon on a different server. People can find you through a link, or your username which are much more similar to an email address than Twitter’s usernames.
But, just like Twitter, you can still select a header image and profile picture to complete your profile’s overall look.
Can you link Mastodon to Twitter?
Annoyingly, there’s currently no way to transfer your following list from Twitter to Mastodon. So, the easiest way is to just keep an eye out for when your favourite creators announce their move, or use services like Twitodon to help you find users on Mastodon who you already follow on Twitter.
Do you have to pay for verification on Mastodon?
After Elon Musk announced he’ll start to make people pay for verification, there’s been serious drama over blue ticks. But Mastodon’s verfification is free and available to anyone who has their own website.
What’s the character limit for toots on Mastodon?
We’ve all often been frustrated by Twitter’s 280 character limit, with many writers utilizing threads to continue their posts over that length. But on Mastodon, user’s have 500 characters to work with. So, maybe our rants will flow a little bit better from now on.