During the last two weeks or so, Elon Musk has finally taken over Twitter and during that time I’ve been exploring Mastodon. Since then, rumours have been rife about the return of Donald Trump and other banned accounts, including hate groups such as Britain First.

However, at a more substantial level, Mr Musk has overseen the sackings of thousands of employees and (according to the NY Times, one of many sources) the departure of security executives; Lea Kissner, the chief information security officer; Damien Kieran, the chief privacy officer; and Marianne Fogarty, the chief compliance officer. The slow circling of the drain as technical failures compound should make users look for alternatives.

A little over two weeks ago I joined The Free Radical Zone on Mastodon which is awesome btw, I love it. I get so much more engagement on Mastodon than I ever had on Twitter, and it’s a much nicer environment.

In this episode I interview Kirk aka Tek who is the server owner of Free Radical Zone, just one of the many “instances” available as part of the Mastodon Federated Network. It’s so good I think you should join too.

In particular, you’ll learn about the difference between moderation on Twitter and Mastodon, the sense of community, and the main differences between the local and federated timelines.

Here’s Tek’s address: @tek@freeradical.zone
My address: @RichardsonsRubicon@social.vivaldi.net (updated as I moved)

Find out more about Mastodon here: https://joinmastodon.org/

1.
Here’s how a Twitter engineer says it will break in the coming weeks | MIT Technology Review. Accessed November 15, 2022. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/08/1062886/heres-how-a-twitter-engineer-says-it-will-break-in-the-coming-weeks/
2.
Musk Paints Bleak Picture for Twitter as Executives Depart – The NYT …. Published November 11, 2022. Accessed November 15, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/technology/elon-musk-twitter-employees.htm