I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.

brib

In https://theweeklymiscellaneous.co.uk/posts/2025/10/an-autistic-persons-guide-to-mastodon/ I end up describing it as:

Mastodon distributes power. No one admin has control over the whole network, and while an admin temper-tantrum can disrupt the network, it cannot engulf it in the way that it can engulf Twitter or Bluesky. Instead, it is entirely possible to avoid the tantruming admin while still being on Mastodon.
This changes the incentives involved. Mastodon is easier to run out of a furry’s basement, so there is no incentive to raise huge amounts of venture capital money (and be beholden to what venture capitalists want). If anyone wants to enshittify their Mastodon server, users will pack up and move servers - this makes Mastodon incredibly resistant to enshittification. Since advertising is a form of enshittification, this means Mastodon is entirely ad-free - and by extension, it is surveillance-capitalism-free, because why do all that spying if you can’t have ads?

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brib

@taylorlorenz

The result is a social media experience that feels a lot more like the old Internet - people talking to people, rather than ads and brands getting in the way. The way decentralised social media works can feel unfamiliar at first - for example, which server do you pick out of the hundreds online? - but it is also key to its resilience and to maintaining its quality.

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Mike Fraser :Jets: :flag:

@taylorlorenz You own your timeline. Like the early days when social media worked.

Mastodon

@taylorlorenz let us know how we can help - we think a lot of people are pretty tired of having their data mined, conversations sold, and commercial companies injecting inauthentic content into their timelines. Maybe that’s just us? Happy to have a chat if it would be useful.

Lookie Loo

@taylorlorenz
This post right here:

Al Sweigart (@AlSweigart@mastodon.social)

It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.

Mastodon (mastodon.social)

Because Mastodon is lots of severable, community-edited, non-profits linked up.

Jodsclass 🏴‍☠️☕

For me, it’s the total lack of an algorithm as standard, and the fact that any individual or organisation can spin up an instance, making censorship that much harder, especially if hosted in a privacy respecting country.

Lynn D 🇨🇦

@taylorlorenz no algorithm and no ads means that you get to see the posts from the people that you follow, not who The Algorithm dictates. You can also move to another instance if
without losing your followers, and if your instance is federated, you can “talk” to all of the other federated instances (that last one is something that I have had to explain to several people who have somehow been given the impression that you can only connect with people on your own instance).

Jonathan T

@taylorlorenz At the risk of quoting a monstrous human being, "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"

TheZorse

@taylorlorenz

While it can be used for commercial purposes, the control rests with people, not corporations. In that sense it's true social media, rather than a profit-making or power-manipulating enterprise disguised as something else.

Meznor 🇨🇦🇮🇹🇪🇺

@taylorlorenz It *starts* with community (does not seek unsustainable growth, by default). Because hosts depend on the community to fund it, it can’t grow so big as to be exploited (limits to growth are useful to sustain meaningful community connections).

sodiboo :pride_heart:

@taylorlorenz@mastodon.social I think one aspect that can make it safer is the relatively small scale of each node in the network and the horizontal scaling of moderation. like, if there's something abhorrent that breaks my server's rules and I report it, then I know who will receive that report. I can talk to my instance moderators. and they're not moderating the entire network; just what reaches their instance. they need to do a lot less work to still deal with a significant chunk of abuse, compared to a monolithic social media platform.

additionally, I can choose which instance I trust to manage that responsibility and what rules I agree with. there's no single unilateral team deciding what you can and can't post on the fediverse; if I disagree with my instance moderation I can talk to them yes, but I can also go somewhere else without having to find an entirely new platform with new faces. my new instance would let me access the same underlying network but a slightly different view of it with a slightly different vibe.

not everyone will get along perfectly. a lot of people will want slightly different rules enforced on their social media platforms. decentralized moderation makes that possible.

personally, I host my own instance. this does mean that I've received more abuse than I ever did when someone else was moderating my exposure to trolls. but I've only really blocked about a dozen domains and after that it's fine? and now, I'm left with a place that is my own. this is the ultimate tool of free expression. nobody can tell me what I can or can't post (besides my hosting provider). this is just a thing you can do on fedi. become ungovernable. this isn't like "One Weird Trick To Have No Accountability": if I post anhorrent things or behave badly, I will get blocked on a large scale by many instances; but as long as I'm chill , I still get to use the same social network with the added bonus that nobody can take my account away from me without warning. it's mine.

softproof

@taylorlorenz By proving to them that crowdsourcing can still beat AI-fluff, perhaps? And you're well on your way

Paul

@taylorlorenz

No ads, no algorithm, admins who care (if you pick the right instance), a sense of community and control. You have it here, rather than the billionaires

YourShadowDani

@taylorlorenz

On decentralized social media (like Mastodon) there's no Algorithm making sure you see the optimal toxic engagement bait.

All you get for posts is do people like it recently?

Its like the good old days before big tech had their Algorithms dialed in to make you as addicted as possible.

Giorgio Pasqualini

@Mastodon @taylorlorenz I think it is mostly used by european escaping from US tech, maybe like in reddit have posts be shown in the user language no matter what, like in reddit.

FoxyLad :tinoflag:

@taylorlorenz I compare it to email, with how people or organizations control their own servers. Then ask what they think email would be like if one company controlled all of it. And how much they would charge.

💡𝚂𝗆𝖺𝗋𝗍𝗆𝖺𝗇 𝙰𝗉𝗉𝗌📱

@taylorlorenz
- Community-driven, not profit-driven
- chose instance with rules that suit you
- the "for you" feed (list), that is actually made by you
- follow many other services/blogs from the one account (Pixelfed, Lemmy, etc.)

Peter Brown

@taylorlorenz we are in control- not the algorithms.
Other platforms thrive on conflict. Mastodon does not because people do not like it and it’s people who drive Mastodon timelines, not algorithms.

Movie2468

@taylorlorenz

To answer this, we should first understand why people don’t think it makes sense. Someone I know that dislikes big business, and uses X said: “I struggle to understand the basics of a decentralized social network, it seems oxymoronic except for extreme nerds”.

Take that as you will, but hopefully it is useful feedback.

GhostOnTheHalfShell

@taylorlorenz

The most concise way I describe the difference between commercial algorithm based platforms versus the fediverse.

In the former, you are presented with the illusion of a town square, it propagates content based on spectacle and “engagement”

In the latter, people are the algorithm as members of distinct communities, moderated by real people.

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Wandering Adventure Party

I’ve been asked on TV hits and interviews lately to explain why decentralized social media is better, especially re: Mastodon.

Al Sweigart (@AlSweigart@mastodon.social)