Mastodon and the State of the Federated Web

Mastodon is a decentralized and federated social networking platform consisting of multiple unique servers communicating via a shared protocol (ActivityPub). This allows each Mastodon server to run as its own community. Instead of one big monolithic server focused on general interests and discussions, there are servers for many different interests and tastes. But what makes this system unique is that any Mastodon user can subscribe and follow any other user on a different copy. And ActivityPub also allows other non-Mastodon-based systems to communicate with Mastodon instances and vice versa.

Craig Maloney will discuss a brief history of Mastodon and the history of federated social media (Mastodon was not the first in this field). We'll cover the basics of Mastodon and how to use it. We also discuss some third-party applications that can be used with Mastodon. Then we'll take an introductory look at ActivityPub, the protocol that connects Mastodon instances to the larger federated web.

Facebook and Twitter have been in the news for their poor handling of user data and privacy. With Mastodon and the greater federated web, we have the ability to communicate without leaking our data. If you care at all about the future of social media, you won't want to miss this look at a promising platform and protocol.

Craig Maloney has been interested in computers since reading about them in the World Book Encyclopedia. He is a board member of the Michigan!/usr/group and spends his days programming in Python. He currently writes about himself in the third person and doesn't find that strange at all. More information can be found at http://decafbad.net.

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