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@_elena the fediverse is... difficult. It's not nearly as easy as "go to Twitter.com and you'll be tapped into the feed". It takes research, and work, and a little bit of technical knowledge to make a mastodon account and add users from different instances.

This modicum of difficulty has been a SPECTACULAR remedy to the Eternal September of the rest of the internet. So many people post thoughtful, quality content, everyone seems educated and knowledgeable. No dummies allowed.

@_elena According to the Internet Archive's Wayback machine I joined the proto-Fediverse (identi.ca) in 2008. It was fun. It was people who were not normal. We inspired each other to self-host, to make silly podcasts, and to share.

Eventually, I started thinking "Wow. I follow a lot of trans women. Well, I suppose that just shows what a diverse community we are."

There followed a series of personal epiphanies. I cocooned for a few years.

@_elena I used to love Twitter but then a terrible person took it away from me. Nobody can take Mastodon away! It's a system, not a website or a company.

J'aimais Twitter mais puis un person affreux m'en à emporté ca. Personne peut emporter Mastodon. C'est une système, pas une site web ou une compagnie.

@_elena Mainly because it's European.

@_elena The Fediverse is such a special place, because people try at least to be nice and educated to each other ❤️

@_elena

you'll do great. The Fediverse is lucky to have an ambassador like you. We're lucky to have an ambassador like you.

@_elena
I was on Google Plus, it was my first social media experience and I liked it. When G+ was killed my online friends moved to a lot of different platforms and I joined most of them. The one that felt best was a diaspora site. Then the site shut down because the maintainer died unexpectedly. Most of my friends moved to other diaspora servers in the USA but I wanted a server in Australia and I ended up on a Mastodon site. I made new friends and liked it. Then Twitter went strange and the whole mastodon culture changed with the influx of new people and many of my real world friends joined mastodon instances. I wish mastodon communicated with diaspora but I guess I would have no chance of finding my old friends again. I don't like the new boost everything culture but it is still better than the alternatives. I meet and interact with interesting people and they react to my comments. It gives me connections that I wouldn't have otherwise and I still have a stream that I can mostly get through each day.

@_elena interpersonal connections & glimpses in the lives of real people without ads, billionaires, influencers or algorithms.

@_elena
Its very simple, really, I have made friends here, the neurodivergence network never fails to surprise, delight, and frustrate me, and I never have to wonder who paid to put something in front of me. If I want it to do something different, I can do it.

@_elena

Ironically, I think of myself as a big fish in a little pond on corporate social media. Most people don't seem to know much at all there. Here, I'm a normal-sized fish in a big pond. Damn near everyone in my feed has some expertise I don't. I learn all the time here.

@_elena Fediverse puts "network" back behind "social" where big corps bulldozed in "media" and subverted the good old internet.

@_elena

what's special about the fediverse for me is that the feed eventually ends and i can't scroll forever

unless it's a live feed, which i can't bring myself to scroll even for a minute

@_elena

In X, I found Nazis
In Bluesky, I found anxiety
In the Fediverse, I found friends

@_elena true communication, true social/human interest, no advertising, no toxic depressing algorithms, no massive control

@_elena

The kind of engagement I’m looking for in a social network are conversations with inquiry, curiosity, and kindness. I see this all the time in the Fediverse and get great value whether I’m an active participant or not.

Three years ago a person I followed was having a very very hard time with a chronic illness.

I wrote this thread for them …

https://ruby.social/@stepheneb/109623140070246353

@_elena J'ai rencontré deux personnes extrêmement spéciales ici. Les deux ont devenuent très proche à moi. Une est maintenant ma partenaire.

J'ai rencontré ces personnes à cause d'une petite blague que j'ai publié. J'ai fait beaucoups de telles blagues sur des réseaux sociaux bourgeois, mais chaque fois, les algorithmes ont décidé de les oublier. Ici, les gens ont aimé la blague, alors elles l'ont partagé, alors tout le monde l'a vu. C'est à cause de ça que j'ai rencontré ces deux personnes. À cause de l'absence des algorithmes, nous avons pleines des opportunités pour des connections vrais.

Pour les curieux-ses, la blague malheureusement ne fonctionne pas en Français, mais c'était:

Ouais, chuis LGBT:
L - Absence d'
G - Allez au
B - Lit a l'heure
T - Transgenre

@_elena
I just like the idea that it's using an open protocol and anyone can spin up a server and run it however they like. The idea that an entire global communications network can be dominated by a couple of big companies is repugnant to me and anything I can do to undermine their dominance is worth doing.

@_elena j'aime le Fedi parce qu'ils savent ce qu'est « iel ».

@_elena (Apologies because my French is not fantastic!)

Je suis Américaine, et le Fediverse a été absolument crucial pour que je puisse continuer d'accéder à des médias indépendants et à des perspectives importantes venues du monde entier. Je lui en suis très reconnaissante.

@_elena Je voudrais dire que c’est un bon place. Tres gentil. (How did I do? 😅)

@_elena One of the things that I love most (aside from the lack of algorithm) is that it isn’t so US centric like the other big social platforms. Plus no corporate overlords harvesting our data to sell to the highest bidder.

@_elena
https://furry.engineer/@linkachus17/116209864035966637

@_elena les plateformes modernes poussent les utilisateurs à se comporter comme des commerciaux qui vendraient une marque / un produit, comportement renforcé par les algorithmes récompensant ces comportements.

Le Fediverse, c'est le retour au web d'avant ces services.

@_elena
Count me as an old guy, in my 70s.

In the Fediverse I define my "algorithm", following people who have interesting things to say or post). It means paying attention to individuals to determine who to follow, and expanding my lists both on relevant hashtags as well as strangers who appear in a thread.

Yes, there's certainly some confirmation bias in selecting who I follow, but the diversity of opinions is large.

I get to see posts in foreign languages, some of which I can read, but most I translate on-line.

I learn things from perfect strangers, sometimes inspired by them. And there's a level of engagement I don't see elsewhere.

@_elena because like email, all users and servers are equal. As the French say Liberté, égalité, fraternité

@_elena Le fediverse me permet de définir et connaître exactement mes filtres d'affichage dans un environnement riche, libre et varié. Alors il me sert une excellente mixture de découvertes, actualités, confort, chats, oiseaux etc.
Son vie dépend de ses utilisateurs, au lieu de profits/spéculations.

@_elena I started out humbly, on mastodon dot social. Now I run private servers for Mastodon, PeerTube, and Faircamp, all of which run off of a PC in my living room. I couldn't host any of the corporate platforms at all, and here I am looking forward to adding users at some point.

It's also like a knowledge hub, with added pictures of dogs, cats, lizards, birds, arachnids, and countless close-ups of lichen and moss. Plus Monsterdon!

Anyone can join in!

The Fediverse is what social media was supposed to be.

@_elena It's an honest platform. Honest people, honest connections, honest content.
Which honestly shouldn't be the exception it is nowadays.

@_elena

Le fediverse nous donne le pouvoir de décider comment gérer nos réseaux sociaux:

1. Les normes d'usage sont établies par consensus et peuvent se changer par consensus. Cela inclut aussi la possibilité de connecter ou bloquer certains serveurs.

2. Aucune entité privée ne peut censurer nos conversations au fediverse.

3. Aucune personne ou entité privée ne peut transgresser ces normes. Ni son argent ni sa réputation peuvent acheter un traitement de faveur. Le fediverse n'appartient qu'à ses utilisateurs.

4. Par conséquent, les utilisateurs sont plus conscients des normes et des conséquences de les violer, et cela peut s'apprécier aux interactions, plus respectueuses que dans les réseaux privatives.

En plus, le fediverse est un projet très proche à l'esprit de ce que l'Internet doit être, une réseau de communication libre et respectueuse.

@_elena It ought to be enough that an organization can have an online presence not owned & controlled by Zuckerberg & Musk, but here goes...

If by "prestigious" you mean they have the resources (staff, money), they should have their own instance. As complete control as anyone can have in social media.

Corollary: Having a social media handle like [email protected] ROCKS! (You might want to translate that to corp-speak.)

1/2

@_elena i use the fediverse because it has more #Social_Logics than corporate media and networks.
foundation of common ground is not profit but interest and trust. .. and with this aspect fediverse is more suitable for human InterAction .
... side-factor: there are no ads ..

@_elena Ici, tu es un être humain, pas un produit dont il faut tirer le plus de profit possible.

@_elena I love that it's both local and global for me. The instance I'm on makes it feel very local (because I chose one by location rather than interests), but I follow foreigners and hastags, and get a global feel too.
Additionally, I love that my timeline is not an endless scroll. I can always go on reading either the global timeline, or more chatty people I have in lists, but there's a natural "stop" if I try to use "check mastodon" as a nervous tick or procrastination button.

@_elena This is awesome! Thank you for speaking for us!

@_elena
On the Fediverse i see the things I CHOSE to see, and not what the ALGORITHM FORCED ME to see.

@_elena Facebook and Twitter tried to build social networks for the entire world. But they demonstrated that it's impossible to define rules that work for everyone and all situations. The solution is to have many communities, each with its own rules and norms, let people choose the community that best fits, and give users the power to communicate to people in other communities.

@_elena

I was about to write mine when this came across my timeline, almost exactly what I was going to toot.

https://wandering.shop/@realtegan/116365146237067187

@_elena je vais pas mal répété ce qui a été dit j'pense :
Je préfère ici parce que l'environnement de scrollingl'air bien plus... "choisi"
Enfin, on a le contrôle sur ce qu'on veut voir. Si je veux pas de... je sais pas moi... de vache (pardon les vaches, c'est juste un exemple 🤷🏻) dans ma TL, je choisis tout simplement de pas suivre des gens qui en parle. Ou de masquer les mots-clés liés. Et ça fonctionne !
Tandis que les grosses plate-formes nous imposent beaucoup de choses. On peut bloquer des gens qui parlent de vaches à tour de bras, on continue encore d'en voir beaucoup.
Aussi on est + proche des "chef" des instances, et on peut discuter -

1/?

@_elena alas my French is very rudimentary these days.

In an age where most social media sites implement algorithms to control what we see based on the whims of tech billionaires, and people are encouraged to chase popularity and influence, the Fediverse frees us from those algorithmic barriers and allows us to find true human connections and build supportive communities, while giving individuals greater ownership and control of their data.

I suspect others could write it more eloquently!

@_elena no built-in surveillance or tracking, no ads, no algorithms.

@_elena Parce que je peux voir les vies de vraies personnes, éparpillées au hasard dans mon fil, et non ce que l'algorithme essaie de m'imposer ce jour-là. Parce que Mastodon ne cherche pas à pomper mes données pour les revendre à des courtiers peu scrupuleux dans des pays du tiers-monde comme les États-Unis. Parce que les gens se passionnent vraiment pour la mousse, les fenêtres et les vieilles technologies informatiques. Parce que c'est humain, bordélique et aléatoire, et non pas sélectionné pour moi par un système à la Big Brother appartenant à des milliardaires ou à des investisseurs en capital-risque.

@_elena I think the fediverse is special because it's got that old-internet vibe.

@_elena

Chère Elena,

je préfère le Fediverse parce qu'il est cool, important et progressif. Et parce que je veux éviter tous ces idiots sur les grandes plateformes:)

Bien des salutations de Berlin,
Elke

@_elena The instance you join largely defines your experience here as they each have their own flavour and differing levels of moderation (some more, some less). You can try different ones until you get a good fit.
I'm lucky that I landed on one that works well for me - they block servers with worrisome content, I can see posts from thousands of other instances, it has a very large character/word limit for posts, and attracts a lot of people with overlapping interests.
Mastodon doesn't work as smoothly as as big name social media platforms. But if you get confused and post a question, people jump in with advice and tips. There is a bit of a learning curve (as every new endeavour has), and the people who stick with it don't mind that.
There are also volunteers who offer help and it's worth following them as they often post tips.
The volunteer culture throughout Mastodon and the Fediverse is what makes it all a great experience.
I've found a great community here. As a science writer, I've encountered and conversed with people with all sorts of expertise in sci-med-tech -- and have found leads for multiple stories I've written. Also, lots of artists who post wonderful artwork and photos. And, other writers.
Once you learn to do things like use hashtags and follow hashtags, you can 'find your people'. There are also directories out there to help you find instances to join that focus on an area of interest. Switching to another instance is easy too.

@_elena The fedi is truly neighbors meeting neighbors: by geography, interest, need, cats or moss. It’s what the internet felt like when it started reaching people via modems before everything became a place for large companies to plaster with ads.

@_elena I just don't get the rage from it like I do with Meta products.
I've been so angry for so long.
Fedi is much calmer, chill, easy to nope out if things do get a bit weird in a way you don't like (just mute that conversation, mute someone for a period, or forever, or block, lots of options!)

Conversation is meaningful.
It's random, niche and nerdy.
Whatever your special interest, you can find it, if you look - there is no algorithm hiding things from us or presenting us with things we should apparently love/hate.

It's so much more.. Real. It's not sanitised or exaggerated for reach and clicks. People just put themselves out there for whatever reason. It's more like when the internet was better (granted not for every marginalised group but nowhere has achieved that yet - we can keep trying!)

And overall it's got more good things like: anti-AI sentiment and critique, no quarter for fascists etc. Again not perfect but, a definite improvement over for-profit socials where you and your life are the product. No one is a preiuxt product here. Just people!

@_elena People are simply just more friendly here on Mastodon. And the absence of algorithms is for me how the internet should be.