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Social media as we know it is not what many people think or hope it to be. Good news: there is a better way.
The usual suspects do a good job of letting you share your thoughts, pictures, and videos with anyone you specify. Unfortunately they also do a truly excellent job of selling your data, destroying your online privacy, and using algorithms and psychological tricks to influence what you see and buy.
Both the companies involved and those who use their products potentially have much to gain, but the latter (us) arguably have more to lose.
There’s a lot to like about Instagram, but I’ve started viewing it as the ‘What will they try to convince me to buy today’ platform. It’s scary how good their algorithm is at finding things to tempt me with! I’m interstate at the moment with a great foldable bag and toilet paper gel (turns toilet paper into wet wipes) that I heard about on Insta.
But I’m drawing the line when it comes to sharing my thoughts and creations. Anything published online can be stolen/will exist forever somewhere; those aren’t things I can stop. What I can control is where I share those things, so that they can’t be monetised or deleted by a platform that wants to wield that kind of power.
Enter the IndieWeb, and the Fediverse. Mastodon is now my primary social media, and I’m delighted with it!
There’s a growing number of bloggers taking back the reins of their online presence, and I’m one of them. We’re using an approach called POSSE: Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. As I also publish on Medium, I’ll be adding canonical links there marking my blog post as the original source.
Feedle is an excellent place to see what other people who are taking back control of the web are doing. It’s a search engine for blogs and podcasts. You can “Discover content creators you may not know about, all from a single RSS feed, solely based on your interests.” And yes, they’re also on Mastodon!
If you’re not sure what Mastodon or the Fediverse is, read this, and this. Don’t overthink it, just join a reputable instance and dive in (you can change it later). See Feditips for beginner-friendly advice on how to get around (they’re on Mastodon as @[email protected]).
Federation is like a kind of public email system—lots of different providers, and everyone can talk to everyone else. All you need is an address. Just as someone with a Gmail account can send mail to people on Rocketmail, Fastmail, or Outlook, someone on Mastodon.social can interact with people on Pixel.fed and Friendica.
The beauty of it is that it’s a chronological feed with no algorithms, monopolies, or attention commodification.
Imagine! No big eye-in-the-sky serving up what they want you to see and hiding what they don’t; just a list of what people said, in the order they said it. You’re right; this shouldn’t be something we have to fight for.
⚠️ Warning: some federated social media platforms use algorithms!
Threads and Bluesky work a little differently. You’ll need to do your own research and decide for yourself if they’ll be a good fit based on your own values. They also don’t currently fully integrate with Mastodon and other truly federated services.
If you’re a paying Medium member, you already have access to their Mastodon server.
While you can’t comment directly onto my blog, you can interact with me once you have your own Fediverse account. One day I sincerely hope that decentralised, federated social interactions will be the norm.
This is my Mastodon feed. Join me!
Follow my RSS feed, or sign up to receive posts in your inbox
My posts cost you nothing to read, but a goodly amount of effort on my part to put together. If you’ve found value here I invite you to share this post with someone you think will appreciate it, or to make a contribution to my support jar.
