A plea to journalists covering the Fediverse:

If you want to pitch a story and the only people you can think of to talk to are Gargron and the Journa Host admin, please don't.

Instead, use the time you saved to learn more about how this network functions, who the people behind ActivityPub are (and what that even is), who the people keeping instances running are, who the people moderating instances are; you can even get your hands dirty by digging through the Mastodon GitHub issue queue and learning why exactly some design decisions ended up the way they did, it's all right there!

Mastodon is not off-brand Twitter. You do this entire community a massive disservice by painting it as such, and you do our profession a disservice by expressing a complete lack of curiosity about this community before you report on it.

Thank you.

The whole reason for each of us boosting content here in the #fediverse is that each of us is our own algorithm. We are doing for #mastodon what the algorithms do for all other social media - design what everyone will see. The Federated flow is pure, literally unadulterated content - unadulterated by any algorithms other than the people posting.

FB & Insta were tedious before - a trudge through more ads than anything else. #Twitter was a gladiatorial hellhole. They all pale that much more in comparison now. They are how social media USED to be.

The Fediverse is how social media must be.

For starters, let's refuse to ever let any private interest of any kind either own it or control it. This information crossroads must remain a public utility - run by the people for the people.

May the Fediverse live long & prosper.

Some good news regarding Mastodon's trademark.

Instance names cannot use the word "Mastodon" without express permission of Mastodon gGmbH.

Excellent—a lot of shady people were trying to pass themselves off as "Mastodon".

https://joinmastodon.org/trademark

Memo to the media:

Stop letting politicians get away with calling asylum seekers "illegal immigrants" or saying they're not coming to this country "the right way." Seeking asylum is legal. Presenting themselves at the border & requesting asylum is "the right way" to seek asylum.