I recently quit using Twitter altogether. Its owner has been abusing the platform for political gain and profit. It made no sense to keep supporting that. I am more active on Mastodon anyway, the friendly federated social platform that all of you should prefer over Twitter, BlueSky or Threads 😉
I wrote an article about switching to Mastodon a while ago, check out Migrating from Twitter to Mastodon. But after the recent mass-exodus from Twitter after the US elections, I thought it would be a good idea to write an update for those people who recently found their new home on a Mastodon instance.
When you are new to Mastodon, it can be a bit of a daunting task to get the information to flow. Unlike the other aforementioned platforms where the ‘algorithms’ ensure that your feed is constantly populated, you actually need to subscribe to one or more topics and/or start following actual people, to kickstart your federated timeline and see stuff worth reading.
Coming up with topics is not hard – just type something that comes into your mind in the search field of your client, and you will be able to look for hashtags, posts or people matching or containing that text string. Start following a hashtag is enough to start the flow of posts to read.
But finding people may be harder. Not everyone posts on Mastodon using their own name or with a recognizable nickname. How to find interesting people to follow? Here are some options.
Also called a ‘Starter Pack‘, the FollowPacks are a concept that was actually born on the BlueSky platform. Now they are also created for Mastodon and boosted by the MastodonMigration account. FollowPacks are a convenient way for new users of Mastodon to quickly populate their list of people to follow in the Fediverse.
In essence, a FollowPack is a CSV file containing the listname and Mastodon addresses of up to 35 people who have a relevance to a certain topic area. An example line in such a CSV file for an “OpenSource” list could be a reference to myself:
OpenSource,@alien@fosstodon.org
The MastodonMigration blog has a instructional article about FollowPacks and how to use/import them into your Mastodon account: the Mastodon Follow Pack FAQ, as well as a page with a directory of these packs that they themselves maintain – on topics of ‘Astronomy and Space‘, ‘Climate‘, ‘US Politics‘ and ‘Miscellany‘ and hopefully more to come: the Mastodon Follow Pack Directory.
Instructions for obtaining and importing the packs are simple: download the pack’s .csv file and import into Mastodon to follow all accounts contained in there. As the list content grows, you will be able to merge new names into existing lists. In more detail:
- Click on a FollowPack’s
.csvfile link to download it - Click on the ‘Preferences‘ (gear) icon at the bottom right of your Mastodon homepage
- On a mobile or narrow desktop click the “hamburger” button located at the top right of the page
- Click ‘Import and Export‘ > ‘Import‘
- As the ‘Import type‘ in the dropdown: Select ‘Lists’ (NOT ‘Following list’)
- Verify that ‘Merge’ is selected (IMPORTANT)
- Click the ‘Browse…’ button and select your previously downloaded “[file name] – list.csv”
- Press ‘Upload‘ > ‘Confirm‘
You can create such a FollowPack yourselves too of course, and share it with your friends.
What else is there? If you are in need of expansion of your personal ‘following‘ list, you could look at the accounts that someone else is following. For instance, here is the list of people I am following: https://fosstodon.org/@alien/following . In general, add “/following” to the Mastodon homepage of any person.
To broaden your search, look for people who are actively posting. The Mastodon server instance where I have my home, Fosstodon, is a place whose users have an affinity with Open Source. That may lead to the discovery of some interesting people. If you want to know who posted most recently on Fosstodon, check out the server’s directory like this: https://fosstodon.org/directory?order=active&local=true .
Mind you, Fosstodon is just one of many servers in the Fediverse, so everything that gets posted there will find its way to your own Mastodon home if you or other people on your server instance are following the topics mentioned in their posts. You will find more people to follow, if you visit other instances’ directories. Lists of Mastodon servers can be found here or here, or find them via a convenient search form here.
Yet another way to quickly find people that fall in certain categories is to use fediverse.info. For instance, this search string leads to a directory of accounts that are tagged with “OpenSource”: https://fediverse.info/explore/people?t=OpenSource .
Found anything else to boost your ‘following‘ list? Let us know in the comments section below!
Have fun! Eric
Im from Brazil, you dont know what “abuse” means. Elon is a great alliad for our freedom.
Musk was a great promoter of renewable energy and warned several times for the dangers of AI.
Now, he sleeps with a wanna be dictator who’s going to stop all renewable energy projects, no energy transition, more drilling for oil and fracking, and is going to stop AI regulation (stop any regulation concerning the tech sector).
What do you think his motives could be?
No, Musk is not an ally of our freedom. He is just making money here. Not a problem for me, if I’m on the list to go to Mars 😉
If by “abusing the platform for political gain and profit” you mean allowing all viewpoints to be presented for open discussion, pointing out the folly of certain viewpoints, and perhaps recouping some of the billions spent to purchase the platform, I’d have to agree.
The freedom to choose is a wonderful thing.
Trump hired Musk to replace people in all government institutes (that’s what DOGE really is about) who have shown (for instance on social media) to have different (democratic) viewpoints, is that what you mean by freedom?
I don’t see anything in DOGE about replacing people. Would be against the charter – assuming the charter is to create a more efficient government. What different democratic viewpoints are grounds for dismissal?
I guess you haven’t been following what Trump said in public about what he is going to do with people who don’t agree with him.
He said a couple of times that his success would be the greatest revenge. Unless you have something concrete to offer I’ll consider this closed.
This is total fucking abuse of power: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/27/business/elon-musk-government-employees-targets/index.html
Fucking hell, this is even worse than I feared.
But Rinaldi is probably going to say that CNN i s fake news.
You could have chosen to ignore my blog post.
You could have chosen not to write it.
I have a great amount of respect for your work. Your politics? Not so much.
Thank you.
You’re actually gonna tell the blog owner that in an article about his switch from Twitter to Mastodon (which is gonna help a lot of other people who want to do the same), he is not allowed to say why he chose to do that? In his own personal blog? Amazing.
I chose not to reply because a discussion is not possible with Trump / Musk / Bolsonaro supporters anyway.
I do not moderate answers unless they promote violence, hate, racism etc. I let people expose their own beliefs even when I find them deplorable.
In fact, I wish that everyone who supports Trump just stops using my stuff. Those of them who keep using my stuff, I wish them a lot of bad karma.
Hatred is not the answer, Eric! 🙂
Hate? I hate what is happening to the USA. I see all the parallels with the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy and dictatorship in Turkey. It’s the same playbook and the gentle people in the US are acting like sheep, not realizing they are being led to the slaughterhouse.
As for the hate displayed by the commenters to this post, you could have known my political view if your brains worked. This is what I wrote eight years ago: https://alien.slackbook.org/blog/i-can-not-believe-you-americans-fell-for-him/
These are my final words on the topic of my political views, in this comments section at least. I will write as I seem fit in future posts and if you do not like that, please go away and don’t look back. I *will* delete further hate posts.
“ In fact, I wish that everyone who supports Trump just stops using my stuff. Those of them who keep using my stuff, I wish them a lot of bad karma.”
I am fine with people who disagree with my views. It may be that they are correct and I am mistaken. I leave that option open but unfortunately you do not. I can tell you are 100 percent certain of your beliefs and are willing to condemn those who disagree.
Your comment which I quoted above wishes evil upon people because they have a different interpretation and opinion than yours . It is a hateful comment, please consider retracting it.
But I will comply with your wishes and no longer use your packages.
I won’t retract my statement and good-bye. I have no patience or respect left for anyone who still supports Trump or Musk. You think with your wallet and will be sorely disappointed.
Same for people who still believe that Bolsonaro, Erdogan, Al-Assad, Linping, Il Sung, Putin or other dictators are great leaders. Please leave here and don’t come back. Twitter is the right place for you.
Good!
That’s good news! Followpacks are such a brilliant idea, I didn’t know about them before now so thanks for that.
I recently had the pleasure of removing Twitter links from our company website for the same reasons you have for leaving the platform. Really cannot support this decision enough.
Hee Eric , thanks for this article. I’m curious what your reasons against BlueSky are.
Cheers!
Marco
My concerns stem from the BlueSky ToS from last year where it was stated that you’re granting ‘Bluesky Parties’ an “irrevocable, non-exclusive, perpetual, transferable, worldwide, royalty-free license” to use your user-generated content.
But the current Terms of Service https://bsky.social/about/support/tos have much more reasonable terms under section “Bluesky’s Permission to Use Your User Content”.
So, I may change my position on their platform. Still, Mastodon is the platform I chose and I will stick with it.
Ah ok, this might be one:
https://www.reuters.com/technology/eu-says-bluesky-is-violating-information-disclosure-rules-2024-11-25/
Very disappointed to have read this, but you do you.
Still love your work though, thank you.
I do not expect people who support Musk’s agenda would understand Bob’s arguments. Simple like that.
Back on topic…I think the issue with places like Mastodon and bluesky is that people still think they need to game an algorithm. So once they get there, they’re overwhelmed, in a sense, with all the signal. I do like mastodon over bluesky–it tends to have a lot more arty people and geeks/nerds. Bluesky is more like twitter was before it went to shit.
I’ve found some backlash over “reply guys,” but I think it’s also a holdover from twitter/facebook…people who respond are pretty much the people following you given how their algorithms work. I don’t necessarily mind good-faith discussion, unless I’m venting. I’ve discovered some interesting people that way. (But it does take time to unlearn old mindsets and assume people have good intentions, unlike having to constantly be on guard from trolls.)