Twitter migration, or hedging bets?

On 28 October, Elon Musk declared, “the bird is freed” indicating his takeover of Twitter was complete. It caused quite a stir. Both online and off, people started to discuss the future of the platform and what Musk’s stewardship would mean for the social media platform. Some have renewed concerns for their personal data. Others fear that a hateful and unrestricted form of ‘free speech’ would be allowed to spread unchecked on the platform. Early indications are that these fears are justified with people testing the new Twitter environment with controversial and offensive tweets. And journalists have reported a sudden increase in abuse since Musk’s takeover. While these may be signs of what Twitter will become, Musk has stated that there have not yet been changes to content moderation.

In this time of uncertainty for Twitter, hashtags such as #TwitterMigration, #TwitterTakeover, and #Mastodon started trending as people discussed their options. Are we seeing a mass exodus from the social media platform? Or is it too sticky and people won’t dare to abandon their hard won following, knowing that their audience is fickle and won’t follow them to a new platform?

A lot of people have been moving to Mastodon, or at least setting up accounts there as a twitter alternative. In the past week, across the various servers (aka instances), almost 300,000 new Mastodon accounts have been created. The sudden influx of new users onto the major servers even caused issues that resulted in lag, and required server upgrades and code optimisation. Some of the newbies have quit Twitter for good. Others, such as myself, are keeping a presence on both platforms. Though I may abandon the bird site when both of the twitterers who regularly engage with me open Mastodon accounts.

Mastodon has been on my radar for a while due to my teaching content that included the European Union’s foray into public social media, which makes use of Mastodon. But it was not until Musk’s Twitter takeover got Mastodon trending that I signed up. I didn’t bother downloading any app, I just sign in via a browser. After my first week on Mastodon I had to admit it is pretty good. I don’t get the pings of anxiety that Twitter can inspire, and I have had some really nice interactions with people. It really feels like a social network platform opposed to a marketing or audience-building platform. I have seen a number of Australian journalists from the ABC and Guardian Australia sign up. As have Australian academics from UTS, QUT, University of Sydney, University of Queensland, UOW, and RMIT. A growing community in these areas is great as higher education and journalism are areas of interest for me and Mastodon could be a great place for academic communities. It still seems like early days but Mastodon hashtags are emerging including, #academic, #AcademicToots, #Academicchatter, and #AcademicTwitter (old habits die hard). I also heard a rumour on Mastodon that AoIR is considering starting their own Mastodon server.

Growth Hacks and Maximum Engagement!

In just a couple of days on Mastodon I managed to get more engagement than I normally get from six months of tweeting. From this experience I think I have worked it all out. There is no complex algorithm to please on Mastodon. So what you have to do is post mildly interesting posts (called “toots”). I’m interested in photography so I post some of my images. Your toots need hashtags, without them they will be not very visible at all. You also should engage people with polite conversation. While this strategy would never work on Twitter, it seems to work for me on Mastodon. When you first join you should post a toot about yourself and interests, and use the hashtags #Introduction and #TwitterMigration. Chances are people will then begin to say hi.

Visibility

There is no algorithm that significantly curates your timeline on Mastodon. So to be seen your profile and toots need relevant hashtags. Others will then be able to search for those hashtags and find you. You can also use those hashtags and search for like-minded people, and then chat with them and follow them. There are three timeline feeds on Mastodon, your home feed which includes toots from the people you follow. The local feed which includes all the public toots from people on the same server as you. And then there is the federated feed which includes all the public toots from all the people on all the servers that your server knows about.

Likes, favourites, re-tweets, boosts, and quote tweets

Twitter has likes, Mastodon instead has a little star. Clicking the star is favouriting the toot. The thing is, on Mastodon, favouriting a toot does nothing for the reach of the toot. It just shows the tooter that someone liked it. There is no algorithm to please with favouriting posts. If you want to help a toot get in front of more eyeballs then you boost it. The button for that pretty much looks like the retweet button on Twitter. Quote tweets are not a thing on Mastodon. It seems to be one of those Twitter features that migrants really miss. It is actually done on purpose in order to promote more conversation and reduce (often toxic) performative posting.

Privacy & Security

Remember when you read Twitter’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy? Very cool stuff. Well Mastodon has privacy policies, though it is not a single site. There are numerous Mastodon servers that connect together to form a federated space. Each server has its own privacy policy. Mastodon.Social is one of the bigger servers, you can read its policy here. As a rule of thumb, you should be vary careful with the personal information you share on the internet. A surprise I had when signing up to Mastodon is that I didn’t need personal information other than an email. No date of birth, no phone number, though there is an option for using a phone for 2-factor authentication. You should also note that the moderators of the servers can see all of your content. Though in general, toots you send as private or direct message have their exact content hidden unless they are reported on. Speaking of moderators, each server has moderators that are often volunteers, or paid thanks to Patreon supporters. Toots can be reported and they will be assessed by human moderators based on the rules of the server. Individual users can also easily mute and block other users, or even block whole servers.

Verification Tick

This is very different to Twitter, both before and after Musk’s takeover. It also doesn’t cost $8 per month. On Mastodon, there is a verification code in the Edit Profile section of your account. Basically, you need to copy that and paste it into the Head HTML of a site that you control or are associated with, such as your personal website. Then when you include the site in your profile it will be green and have a verification tick, showing that your Mastodon account, and your official website, are linked. Check out these instructions for the specifics of how to verify your Mastodon account.

Sliding into DMs?

Direct messages or private messages are different on Mastodon. They are not really direct messages, but private posts. There are different levels of visibility for your toots. Public, Unlisted, Followers only, and Mentioned people only (aka DMs). When you send a toot using @, only the people you tagged can view the message and it cannot be boosted. Remember that these DMs are able to be read by moderators, though not by default. DM content is hidden from moderators unless it has been flagged and they need to assess it for breaking rules.

I’m not sure how this #TwitterMigration thing will turn out, but I think it is an interesting and evolving situation.

I am still new to Mastodon. These are my first impressions. So, if there are any inaccuracies in what I’ve said, please let me know. Also, if you have any Mastodon tips please leave a comment below.