faq
Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter, users have been looking for alternatives to the microblogging service. Many find a new home on Mastodon. But what is the service? An overview.
What is Mastodon?
Mastodon is a microblogging service. It offers users short messages, hashtags, likes and followers, as well as private messages. But instead of hearts, Mastodon responds to posts with asterisks. Mastodon is “honked” – not “tweeted”. A “Tröt” can be up to 500 characters long.
How do I find the tagesschau on Mastodon?
The address of the account is: [email protected] It is currently not possible to register directly on the ARD instance, i.e. ARD’s own server. However, you can comment and share posts with an account that is stored on another instance. Registration on another instance is possible here: https://joinmastodon.org/de . After an account has been created on a server there, you can follow the tagesschau account.
What is different about Mastodon?
Unlike Twitter, Mastodon is designed as a decentralized network that is not based on a platform: Mastodon consists of many servers that can communicate with each other without restrictions. These individual servers are called instances and together form the “Fediverse”, the “Federated Universe”. All users of all servers can write messages, post, share and like each other on the different servers. There is a caveat though, servers can block other servers, ending communication between their instances.
What is the “Fediverse”?
Mastodon is part of the “Fediverses”, the “Federated Universe”, and describes a merger of different independent systems in which a number of non-commercial social media services and communities are networked. Fediverse is a portmanteau of the English words federation and universe. Federated network systems allow users to send messages from one network to another, cooperating system.
The concept already existed in 2008, long before Mastodon – a project was started with identi.ca, which was also based on open servers and was primarily used by individuals to communicate and transfer files. Mastodon is currently the best known and most used “Fediverse”.
Who runs Mastodon?
The servers are operated by individuals or organized groups. These can be dedicated to various topics such as regional affiliation, common hobbies or political activities. Whether a server allows new members is set individually. It is not possible to advertise on Mastodon. The source code for Mastodon is freely accessible (open source), so there are different apps on different mobile devices, some with their own modifications.
Is Mastodon free?
There are no fees – neither for registration nor for individual contributions. However, the owners of the individual instances have to organize server capacities. These are mostly rented, and so costs arise for the instance operators. Therefore, some instances ask for small donations to finance themselves.