{"id":4262,"date":"2017-05-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/2017\/05\/20\/lessons-so-far-from-mastodon-for-independent-social-networks\/"},"modified":"2024-01-20T05:09:17","modified_gmt":"2024-01-20T05:09:17","slug":"lessons-so-far-from-mastodon-for-independent-social-networks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/2017\/05\/20\/lessons-so-far-from-mastodon-for-independent-social-networks\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons (so far) from Mastodon for independent social networks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Update, November 2022: This post was originally written in May 2017. Since then I\u2019ve updated by fixing typos and adding new links but haven\u2019t changed the lessons. In 2018 I noted that Mastodon has continued to make progress, and that were new lessons to learn, so added \u201c(so far)\u201d to the title. Flash forward to 2022 and it all still seems pretty relevant!<\/em><\/p>\n<figure class=\"kg-card kg-image-card\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/miro.medium.com\/v2\/resize:fit:600\/0*Ofujl4KsZr6M2PiI.jpeg\" class=\"kg-image\" alt loading=\"lazy\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\"><\/figure>\n<p>April was an exciting month for Mastodon. By the end of the month, the open-source, decentralized, social network (\u201cTwitter without Nazis\u201d) had grown to over 500,000 users, funding via Patreon for the lead developer and a part-time project manager, and corporate adoption. The month had its challenges as well, of course. <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/a-change-is-coming\/mastodon-14-perspectives-on-a-breakthrough-month-521ce46baa71\" rel=\"noopener\">14 Perspectives on a Breakthrough Month<\/a> gives an overview of what happened.<\/p>\n<p>Things have calmed down in May. There\u2019s a lot less media attention, and growth is slower. The release process is getting more mature, with kanban boards and release candidates, and discussions in the Discourse forum as well as the Discord and Matrix chat rooms. So now\u2019s a great time to look at what we can learn from these experiences \u2014 for Mastodon and its future, and for other independent social networks as well.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, a lot of these lessons aren\u2019t new at all \u2014 we\u2019ve seen them before with Dreamwidth, Diaspora, StatusNet, Gnu Social, Pinboard, Ello, and others. Mastodon\u2019s a good reminder that they\u2019re still true, so it\u2019s worth reiterating here:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A lot of people want an alternative to corporate-owned ad-funded social networks.<\/li>\n<li>Paying attention to marginalized communities is a great way to get critical mass and visibility.<\/li>\n<li>A small team of developers can get something usable out quickly<\/li>\n<li>There\u2019s interest across the world, not just in the U.S. Mastodon\u2019s lead developer is German, the most active instances are based in Europe and Asia; France is the first government to have an instance; and initial corporate adoption came in Japan.<\/li>\n<li>Decentralization makes things more complex<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Moving on to some new lessons \u2026<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Policies against racism, sexism, discrimination against gender and sexual minorities, and Nazis are extremely appealing positioning these days.<\/strong> Not for everybody, of course: anti-safe-spacers, people with simplistic views of \u201cfree speech\u201d, trolls, harassers and Nazis all have problems with it. Still, there\u2019s clearly a large under-served market who\u2019s sick of the norms on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook,* and elsewhere. Creatrix Tiara\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.autostraddle.com\/mastodon-101-a-queer-friendly-social-network-youre-gonna-like-a-lot-390948\/\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\">Mastodon 101: A Queer-Friendly Social Network You\u2019re Gonna Like a Lot<\/a> on <em>Autostraddle<\/em>, from November 2017, is a good example.**<\/li>\n<li><strong>An explicit anti-harassment and pro-sexual-minority focus will attract a lot of people who are tired of the normalized harassment and heteronormativity on other social networks<\/strong> \u2014 enough to have a significant impact on the software. Furries, LGBTQ+ people, and women have implemented the bulk of Mastodon\u2019s functionality, and continue to help drive development going forward.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A small team of developers can deliver real innovation when it comes to defenses against harassment.<\/strong> Mastodon\u2019s content warnings and instance-level blocking, while far from perfect, are both significant advances on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, an earlier open-source projects. And this lesson directly relates to the previous one: in 2016\/2017, it was LGBTQ+ people who advocated for and implemented much of this innovative functionality including content warnings, instance-level blocking, and local-only posts. <br \/>Allie Hart\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@alliethehart\/gameingers-are-dead-and-so-is-mastodon-705b535ed616\" rel=\"noopener\">Mourning Mastodon<\/a> has a list of early queer community-led improvements. Cassian\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/cassolotl.medium.com\/i-left-mastodon-yesterday-4c5796b0f548\" rel=\"noopener\">I left Mastodon yesterday<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/cassolotl.medium.com\/i-left-mastodon-27-days-ago-ae34919290e1\" rel=\"noopener\">I left Mastodon 27 days ago<\/a>, from 2018, documents the queer-driven origin of keyword filtering and important muting improvements.<\/li>\n<li><strong>However, even with a stated anti-harassment focus it can still be challenging for a network to respond well when people are actually harassed.<\/strong> In decentralized networks, communications between instances whose admins have different norms about the definitions of and appropriate reactions to harassment add a level of complexity. And the crucial anti-harassment protection of <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/hometown-fork\/hometown\/wiki\/Local-only-posting\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\">local-only posting<\/a> (originally implemented in the trans-led glitch-soc fork in 2017, and also available in the Hometown fork) has been rejected from the main code base, so isn\u2019t available on most Mastodon sites. <br \/>Creatrix Tiara\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/creatrixtiara\/status\/1030380785226801152\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\">2018\u20132022 Twitter thread<\/a> is a good early example.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Even with an explicit anti-harassment, anti-fascism, and anti-racism focus, people of color are likely to be marginalized if the most influential people are white. <\/strong>Other patterns that are likely to occur as well (as elsewhere online):<br \/> \u2014 cis men are likely to prioritize anti-harassment functionality lower than women and gender-diverse people. <br \/> \u2014 harassment is more likely to be directed at women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people.<br \/> \u2014 impacts are likely to fall most heavily on women of color, and in particular queer women of color.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Rapid growth will tend to dilute a LGBTQ+ focus, unless there\u2019s an effort to keep LGBTQ+ people centered and give them real authority<\/strong>. Allie Hart\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@alliethehart\/gameingers-are-dead-and-so-is-mastodon-705b535ed616\" rel=\"noopener\">Mourning Mastodon<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@alliethehart\/mourning-what-now-10964cce22a8\" rel=\"noopener\">Mourning What Now?!?!<\/a> April 2018 posts make this case in detail. hoodieaidakitten\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/hoodieaidakitten.dreamwidth.org\/453.html\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\">Mastodon\u2019s Complicated Relationship with Queer Activism<\/a>, Margaret KIBI\u2019s Fringe Mastodev series (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.u2764.com\/NFIC\/2018-09-09\/fringe-beginnings\/\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\">The Beginnings<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.u2764.com\/NFIC\/2018-09-16\/fringe-allie\/\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\">Enter Allie Hart<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.u2764.com\/NFIC\/2018-10-01\/fringe-glitch\/\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\">Joining GlitchSoc<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.u2764.com\/NFIC\/2018-11-06\/fringe-intermission\/\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\">Intermission<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.u2764.com\/NFIC\/2019-09-15\/fringe-progress\/\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\">Progressing<\/a>), and Cassians <a href=\"https:\/\/cassolotl.medium.com\/i-left-mastodon-yesterday-4c5796b0f548\" rel=\"noopener\">I left Mastodon yesterday<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/cassolotl.medium.com\/i-left-mastodon-27-days-ago-ae34919290e1\" rel=\"noopener\">I left Mastodon 27 days ago<\/a> provide a detailed look at the early history. Ana Valens\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailydot.com\/debug\/mastodon-fediverse-eugen-rochko\/\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\">Mastodon is crumbling \u2014 and many blame its creator<\/a>, from 2019, is an excellent summary.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The existing \u201cfediverse\u201d is a two-edged sword for a social network with an anti-harassment and anti-racism focus.<\/strong> While the fediverse shares the goal of building an alternative to corporate sites, many fediverse sites that describe themselves as \u201cfree speech zones\u201d (and people who prefer those sites) are likely to disagree on some core issues including the definition of harassment.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Instance-level federation choices are an important tool for sites that want to create a safer environment<\/strong> (although need to be complemented by user-level control and other functionality). Given the range of different attitudes towards harassment (etc.), this is likely to lead to alliances of more-closely-linked groups of sites that share values, with relatively weak connections between the groups.<\/li>\n<li><strong>There\u2019s a lot more that can be done to counter harassment, Nazism, racism, sexism, transphobia, and other hate online.<\/strong> Mastodon\u2019s current functionality only scratches the surface of what\u2019s possible \u2014 and has generally been introduced in reaction to events in the network. <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/a-change-is-coming\/transforming-tech-with-diversity-friendly-software-338f56d91df\" rel=\"noopener\">Transforming Tech with diversity-friendly software<\/a> looks at Mastodon in a broader context.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>It\u2019s early days yet for Mastodon \u2014 it\u2019s been around for less than a year \u2014 and no doubt there\u2019s more to learn as well. It\u2019ll be interesting to see how the software and the community evolve over time. Stay tuned!<\/p>\n<p><em>Thanks to Creatrix Tiara, Thursday, and others for feedback on early drafts!<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Update<\/strong>, June 26: <em>\u2014 <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/toot.cat\/@jdp23\/981329\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\">Here\u2019s the tootstream <\/a>from my live-tooting the toot.cat admins\u2019 <em>Open Source Bridge <\/em>presentation<em> <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170731030426\/http:\/\/opensourcebridge.org\/sessions\/2082\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\"><em>Federating with the Trouble<\/em><\/a><em>, <\/em>going into more detail based on their experiences.<\/p>\n<p>* see <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@thedididelgado\/mark-zuckerberg-hates-black-people-ae65426e3d2a\" rel=\"noopener\">Mark Zuckerberg Hates Black People<\/a> for a good perspective on this<\/p>\n<p>** November 2022: Creatrix Tiara is now at <a href=\"https:\/\/mage.town\/@creatrixtiara\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\">@creatrixtiara@mage.town<\/a>. Their <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/creatrixtiara\/status\/1030380785226801152\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\">2018\u20132022 Twitter thread<\/a> and current thread with <a href=\"https:\/\/vulpine.club\/@creatrixtiara\/109310828652037900\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\">POC perspectives on content warnings<\/a> are both relevant to many of the lessons outlined here.<\/p>\n<p><em>Originally published at <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/achangeiscoming.net\/2017\/05\/10\/lessons-mastodon-independent-social-networks\/\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\"><em>A Change Is Coming<\/em><\/a><em> and <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/a-change-is-coming\/lessons-from-mastodon-for-independent-social-networks-ae2d4ccf8f72\">on Medium<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Update, November 2022: This post was originally written in May 2017. Since then I\u2019ve updated by fixing typos and adding new links but haven\u2019t changed the lessons. In 2018 I noted that Mastodon has continued to make progress, and that were new lessons to learn, so added \u201c(so far)\u201d to the title. Flash forward to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,1],"tags":[470,436],"class_list":["post-4262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tales-from-the-net","category-uncategorized","tag-fediverse","tag-mastodon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4330,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4262\/revisions\/4330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}