That’s it, Twitter officially belongs to Elon Musk. On October 28, the businessman officially got his hands on the microblogging site after months of dithering, controversy and lawsuits. The changeover has not been smooth, as Musk’s policy in terms of content moderation and the evolution of the platform is controversial.
If you don’t want to stay on Twitter following the takeover of the site by the CEO of Tesla, there is an alternative: Mastodon. Online since 2016, this service positions itself as a quasi-clone of Twitter, but emphasizes the openness of code and the decentralization of data. During the single day of October 29, the site recorded more than 70,000 new account creations, an influx undoubtedly linked to the takeover of Twitter.
If you want to embark on an adventure, follow the guide.
Usage warning
Before registering, it is necessary to clarify one simple thing: Mastodon is not Twitter. If the basic operation of the service is very similar to that of the blue bird (with the publication of short messages and the possibility of “following” different accounts), the technical choices made by Mastodon are quite different from those made by its competitor. .
As we said above, Mastodon is a decentralized service, this means that it is not hosted on the servers of a single company. Everyone can therefore create their own Mastodon server (called an “instance”) and apply their own rules to it. The different instances can communicate with each other, but each has its specificities in terms of moderation, technical limitations, etc. To put it simply, Mastodon is similar to how a mailbox works: you can create an account with any service provider and communicate with any other (use a Gmail address to send messages to an Outlook address by example). No need to mount a server in the middle of your living room, there are public bodies that welcome new subscribers (we will come back to this).
Mastodon is also less popular than Twitter (at the moment). This means that you will not necessarily find all your favorite accounts as soon as you register. The community is much smaller and the number of messages published less important. Let’s be honest, we are far from the uninterrupted flow of Twitter, which may bother some or delight others. However, new people are signing up every day.
Step 1: choose your instance
To start well on Mastodon, it is necessary to choose your favorite instance. The mastodon.social instance (Mastodon’s historical server) is a good start if you don’t want to ask yourself too many questions. Unfortunately, registrations on this server have been temporarily paused due to the influx of new accounts. Never mind, there are a multitude of other bodies, including many French ones. The full list is available on the official website.
Once you have chosen your instance, remember it, because it is via this precise URL that you can then reconnect. In the same way that it is not possible to access a Yahoo mailbox with Gmail credentials, it is not possible to access your Mastodon account from an instance different from the one chosen when creating the account.
Step 2: create your account
Once you have decided which instance suits you best (randomly that of April, an association for the promotion and defense of free software), fill in the few personal details that will be asked of you, then click on Register. Most instances will then send you a confirmation email to verify that you are not a bot. Click on it and that’s it, here you are on Mastodon.
Keep your username handy (composed of your user name and the address of the instance) since it is this that will allow you to be identified in the jungle of the different Mastodon instances.
Step 3: Build your network
Once you have successfully registered with Mastodon, all you have to do is follow the accounts you want. To do this, you can use the search tool (ideally specifying the full address of the account you are looking for), take a look at the suggested accounts in the Explore or take a look on Twitter to see if any of your followed accounts have already switched to Mastodon. Be careful though, as on Twitter, there are a lot of “fake” accounts imitating media or public figures. Make sure that the page you are about to follow is “official”.
Then, all you have to do is write your first messages and congratulate yourself on being registered on a decentralized social network, open source and respectful of personal data!