The sudden decision of Twitter to remove accounts of a number of journalists who report on company founder Elon Musk is continuing to resonate across the internet. The decision has also led to the creation of a large number of new users for Mastodon which is an open-source social network which had averaging of 22,000 new accounts per day, but has attracted an additional 70,000+ new members over the past 24 hours according to a well-known Mastodon monitoring bot.
Twitter caused a stir on December. 14 after it blocked an account belonging to a college student that was tracking the flight routes of Musk’s private jet with publicly available data. The news triggered alarm alarms the next day, when it suspended reporters of The New York Times, The Washington Post and Mashable in addition to other media outlets without notice or explanation.
Many of those reporters suspended are now for Mastodon. It doesn’t require an account to search for and read articles from the reporters who has an account on Mastodon I’ll explain how. If you want to set up an account of your own Mastodon account it’s no more difficult than creating an email address.
Learn more information about Mastodon and how to locate the accounts of more famous individuals who have switched to Mastodon from Twitter. It also provides the step-by-step instructions for creating an account on Mastodon account and joining the social media platform that is growing in popularity. To learn more about social media, read how you can download your Twitter archives.
Which Twitter accounts and which reporters were removed by Twitter?
On December. 14th Twitter was suspended the account of @elonjet the account of a bot which tracked private flights from Elon Musk. It’s operated by University of Central Florida student Jack Sweeney, whose personal account as well as several Bot accounts also were removed. Musk had previously criticized the account of Sweeney but also promised not to shut it down in an famous tweet on Nov. 6.
In order to justify the suspension of Sweeney’s accounts Twitter changed its privacy and policy on media on Wednesday, allowing “live location information, including information shared on Twitter directly or links to 3rd-party URL(s) of travel routes.”
The next day Twitter’s main Twitter account of Mastodon was removed, apparently because it shared a link to account on Elonjet page via mastodon.social.
In the afternoon on December. 15 at about 4:45 p.m. PST, a number of tech journalists discovered that their Twitter accounts were suspended. A few but not all accounts had shared hyperlinks to an Elonjet accounts on Mastodon.https://mastodon.social/@JxckS/109520622408392114/embed
In response to the news of the suspensions Musk tweets, “Same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else.” Suspensions for other journalists who had tweeted about Musk continued into the evening.
A majority of the major Twitter accounts suspended on Thursday have accounts on the social media site Mastodon and have different degrees of involvement.
Other journalists banned on Twitter this week include New York Times reporter Ryan Mac as well as freelance journalist Aaron Rupar and former ESPN and MSNBC host Keith Olberman, but none of them appears to possess an active Mastodon account as of yet.
How do I connect with somebody on Mastodon without being a member?
Most Mastodon servers permit public posts on the platform that can be viewed by any user regardless of whether or not you own an account with a Mastodon account. Simply point your browser at any profile of a user and browse through the posts.
If you’re looking for a central method to monitor several Mastodon customers, the most efficient method is to join the Mastodon server and then follow them just like you do follow them on Twitter or another social media platform (see further below). If you do not wish to join Mastodon you could also follow users using the RSS reader.
Every account on Mastodon automatically publishes an RSS feed that can be followed, For example, you can see an RSS feed of my original Mastodon posts at https://mas.to/@peterbutler.rss.
How can I sign up to Mastodon?
Like Twitter, Mastodon isn’t a singular website it’s a decentralized platform comprised hundreds of different websites communicating to one another. To begin writing on Mastodon (which up until recently was known as ” tooting”) and to follow other people it is necessary to sign up for an account on a particular Mastodon server, or “instance.”
To begin being a follower and post messages to the Mastodon social network, you begin by signing up for a particular instance. Each server (if available to registration) has an individual sign-up procedure however, the majority require an email address, username and password.
Once you’ve signed up to the Mastodon instance, you’re not restricted to following only people and posting on the server. It’s possible to follow, follow favorites and reblog, or even respond at any Mastodon account that’s linked to the wider Fediverse.
How do I select which server to use? Mastodon server?
The Mastodon organisation provides a limited database of its servers — around 100 -available on the joinmastodon.org site. You can filter servers by area, language, or topic registration , and whether they’re hosted by individual users or organisations. The servers listed on the Mastodon official Mastodon site have signed a contract to adhere to the highest standards in Mastodon’s Server Covenant. Mastodon Server Covenant.
If you’re looking to test Mastodon for the first time, you could look into one of the server instances operated by the Mastodon organisation. The first and largest mastodon.social server mastodon.social — is temporarily shut down for registration, a more recent mastodon.online server is in operation and is taking over the gap.
If you’re looking for a more extensive selection of Mastodon servers to look over The best choice currently is instances.social, which provides the searchable database of around 4000 Mastodon servers along with an wizard-like application which helps you select the right server for your needs.
The site offers useful information on every Mastodon instance, including the number of users, the number of “statuses” (posts), the percentage of uptime for servers and the version of the Mastodon software it’s running. You can also sort servers by language; the maximum or minimum number of users and also content that is prohibited or allowed, like pornography, nudity, ads as well as entertainment-related spoilers. You can also click on any instance name for instance, fosstodon.org, for instance, a server dedicated to open-source software to see a short description about the group.
If you’re already connected to an Mastodon website, you can find out more about the site from the ” about” page, look up community members via their ” explore” page or read the latest blog posts in their ” public” page.
It is recommended to be sure to read the rules for each server for every Mastodon instance to ensure that it’s a good match, but don’t fret too much about joining a server. You are able to follow other users on different servers, and join and leave any of the Mastodon server as you’d prefer. If you decide to move, Mastodon allows you to transfer all your lists of followers to your new location.
How do I sign up to the Mastodon server?
Joining a Mastodon server only requires a few personal details.Screenshot by Peter Butler/CNET
Each Mastodon instance has the sign-up process that is unique to each instance however, the vast majority of them are identical. If you provide an email address, username and password, then check the box that you agree to the conditions of service, and the server guidelines and select “Sign Up.”
There will be a notice informing you to check the email inbox for confirmation message. Click on the “Verify email address” in the email message then you’re done. You’re now able to begin creating posts for your Mastodon server and also follow any user on the Fediverse.
Due to the increase in volume of traffic on Mastodon servers following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter Some of those registration emails take a long time to arrive or not ever showing up.
When I signed up for my account on the mas.to server last week, I received confirmation emails within 15 minutes. I’m still waiting on confirmation emails from sfba.social to register three days in the past. Take your time, and try a different server if you are unable to complete registration on another.
After verifying your email address After that, your Mastodon account is now in operation. It is now possible to begin making posts or following other users but it can take a few days to set up your feed. Tools for the Web such as Debirdify and FediFinder can help you jumpstart your process, helping locate contacts on Twitter. Twitter friends on Mastodon.
While the majority of Mastodon servers have the simple registration process Other instances, which are more private, will require you to apply for an invitation to join the instance and require the manual review process and takes longer registration times.
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