A number of people have asked me if I think that governments should run Mastodon instances for citizens. There may be exceptions, but I don't think governments should be in this business, for a variety of reasons.

However, I do think that *Libraries* would be *amazing* hosts for public federated social media communities. Just sayin'.

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Two excellent, in-depth guides to Mastodon, which should answer many of your questions, are here:

1. An Increasingly Less-Brief Guide to Mastodon by joyeusenoelle: https://github.com/joyeusenoelle/GuideToMastodon

2. Nikodemus' Guide to Mastodon: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D9gfeKg_-hlsU66R-dLEvUeyMsqEfyIx2pnfUeX0t_E/edit#heading=h.j95atvlbfrn5

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Long ago, the bulk of my social media attention shifted to the Fediverse.

This has changed my Internet habits:

1. I communicate by email more often because everyone has email
2. I use Gemini to catch up on blogs, articles, and thinkpieces
3. More time is spent actually surfing the net, discovering new interesting websites
4. I've become more enmeshed in the decentralized Internet ecosystem
5. My attention drifts more towards what people are doing instead of controversy

Mastodon will update to 4.0 soon! Here are the most exciting new features (in addition to fixes & changes):

- ability to follow hashtags
- ability to filter by language
- ability to translate posts
- ability to post HEIC files (i.e. your iPhone’s native photo format)
- define user roles (big deal for admins)
- define sign-up process on your Instance (admins again)

See all changes here: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/releases/tag/v4.0.0rc1

Thanks, @Gargron and @Mastodon Team. #Mastodon4