The open-source social media network has been attracting a steady stream of new users, most of them disaffected Twitter users who’ve been turned off by new owner Elon Musk’s shenanigans. After crossing a million daily active users in early November, the Mastodon user base has continued to climb. The latest figures show daily active users at 3.3 million, with roughly 50,000 new accounts being created daily. Also: I started my own Mastodon server on a Raspberry Pi. Here’s what I learned That’s still a tiny fraction of Twitter’s massive base, of course, but the momentum and activity are impressive. Last month, I wrote a quick “How to get started on Mastodon” guide. In this follow-up, I address some of the questions I’ve heard from new arrivals. All instances are not equal, however: Each instance has its own administrators and its own moderation policy. Ideally, you want an instance that is well run and with moderation standards that align with your beliefs. Also: Mastodon isn’t Twitter but it’s glorious You might also prefer an instance that’s organized around a particular community, like historians.social, which bills itself as “A place for working and learning about history in community.” Some of those instances are restricted to members who meet specific standards; to join sciences.social, for example, you must be a professor or grad student in a social science department with an .edu mail address. On these smaller, specialized instances, the Local feed (which shows only posts from accounts on that instance) can be an interesting way to find focused discussions among other like-minded souls. To learn more about an instance and its policies (including moderation standards), go to https://<instance_name>/about. You can, however, verify your own account by adding a link back to your Mastodon profile on a website you control. (You’ll find the details, along with a button to copy the necessary HTML code, under the Verification heading on your Mastodon profile.) With that task complete, you can use one of the four metadata boxes in your profile to add a link to the site containing your verification link. That entry appears in green, with the word Verified and a checkmark next to it. Also: The best Twitter alternatives The administrator of each instance can define the maximum length for posts on that server. The default value is 500 characters, but some instances allow much longer posts, effectively turning those sites from micro-blogs into, well, blogs. Also: How to enable two-factor authentication for your security From there, you can set up an authenticator app or configure one or more hardware keys, or both. Be sure to generate a set of backup codes, print them out, and save them in a secure location. The Federated timeline is an absolute firehose showing all public posts that your server knows about from across the entire Mastodon network. You can filter it to show only posts that contain media, and you can also show remote content only, removing posts from your local server. But even with those filters in place the feed can be pretty chaotic. Start at the new instance. Go to Preferences > Account > Account Settings. Under the heading “Moving from a different account,” click Create An Account Alias. (As a shortcut, you can go directly to https://<new_instance>/settings/aliases.) Enter the handle for the account you want to move from, in the format username@domain, and then click Create Alias. Now go to the old instance, the one you want to move from. Open the Account Settings page and, under the heading “Move to a different account,” click Configure It Here. (As a shortcut, you can go directly to https://<old_instance>/settings/aliases.) Enter the handle of the new account, in the format username@domain, along with the current password. Read the notes carefully, and then click Move Followers. If you want to migrate the list of accounts you’ve followed, blocked, or muted, go to Preferences > Import and Export. Export data in CSV format from the old account and import it using the new account.
