The Movement to the Fediverse: Mastodon and Decentralization

My Mastodon account is three days old. I set it up on mastodon.social, tooted (yeah, that’s the verb) a brief introduction, and followed maybe forty people. The whole thing felt like Twitter circa 2008 — slightly clunky, earnestly enthusiastic, and populated almost entirely by tech people talking to other tech people.

The trigger’s obvious. Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter appears to be closing any day now — the deal’s reportedly imminent, possibly finalizing this week. And a significant chunk of Twitter’s user base — academics, journalists, tech workers — is loudly exploring alternatives. Mastodon’s the primary beneficiary.