I made a post recently about [[Why I'm Leaving Twitter]], as it's turning into a hate and flame war filled social network, and how the service's decisions only contribute to that. Now, I'm going to talk about Mastodon, a network that is like Twitter in many ways but has some huge benefits for both privacy and a hatred-free experience. _Disclosure: I'm going to simplify the tech aspects because this post is not intended for programmers or people who already use Mastodon. Also, English is not my native language, so there may be a few mistakes or some places where I unintendedly offend someone. Just let me know in the comments and I’ll make the proper corrections or adjustments._ First of all, Mastodon is open source and doesn't run for profit. It means no ads and also that the decisions will be made with the user in mind, and not a business. But what does that mean, besides being ad-free? First of all, your timeline is still chronological, instead of being tampered with by the service, without the possibility to opt out. That's a huge advantage because of two main reasons: first, a lot of users, including myself, just prefer that way. And second, although Twitter says it shows the tweets we are most likely to like, I somehow doubt that, considering how many ideological discussions (that I absolutely hate) appear on my timeline, even when I don't follow the people who are involved. Another great advantage is the possibility to flag a single toot as NSFW, add a content warning for a post, and also change the privacy settings for just one toot. So, if I'm going to post something that can start some more exaggerated reactions from people who don't follow me, I can set it as private, and only my flowers will be able to see and discuss on the thread. Also talking about threads (or maybe tweetstorms), Twitter recently announced that they are testing a 280 character limit, and some users are already able to post longer texts. But still, Mastodon’s 500 character limit is, IMHO, way better, as it allows us to write a full thought or opinion, without the need to split it into many posts. And there are __instances__ where the limit is 1k characters. That may be too many for most people, but I believe that 500 is the ideal balance between short enough to not have enormous wall posts like in Facebook, but still having some space for more thoughtful and deeper ideas. OK, I talked about instances, but what are they? It’s a little bit hard to make a simple parallel, but you can always [check out the official guide](https://github.com/tootsuite/documentation/blob/master/Using-Mastodon/User-guide.md#decentralization-and-federation) for a more proper explanation. To make it short, think about how there are so many hostility and flame wars on twitter because SJW, religious/politics fanatics, militant feminists and a lot of other completely different groups with somewhat more extreme views and agendas are living under the same roof trying to expose their own ideas. Problems WILL arise as if you go to a bar where some people want a quiet place to chat, and others want really loud music to get drunk to, and others want to go there to watch NFL or the last Game of Thrones episode. [This comic pretty much explains it](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/picture/2016/mar/10/comic-long-slow-death-of-twitter), comparing Twitter to a bar. So, what are instances then? They serve as a way to separate people into groups, while still permitting them to communicate. You can have an instance devoted to people who like technology and science, another for people who want to talk about gender and race equality, and you can follow people from other instances. But you can always block an instance called _youngearthcreationists.com_ and just let them be. THAT is the beauty of it! _Note: Although I completely disagree with creationists, religious fanatics or extremists of any kind, the point is: everyone wants a place to talk about their interests, and everyone can have that on the internet. I’m not suggesting that people whom I disagree should not be permitted to use social networks. The point is that in real life, you don’t go to the church if you are not religious, while religious people don’t (or shouldn’t) go to a striptease bar. I just want to do the same on the internet: interacting with people who want the same things, sharing NSFW pictures and talking about some topics without worrying that I might be offending someone more puritan than me._ So far my experience on Mastodon has been wonderful, and people there are expending more time talking about things they like than arguing with people they don’t know because of things they disagree or get offended by. And that’s what I want from a social network: having a fun time, relaxing and seeing the news that interests me instead of opening a network to be flooded by hatred and people trying to “correct” or “educate” each other. <img src="https://i.imgur.com/kfzRKOA.png" class="img-medium" alt="Source: https://xkcd.com/386/"> Of course, it's a new system and it may lack a few features here and there, but it's mature enough to replace Twitter. If you still want to keep using Twitter for now, and benefit for the extensions and apps that the birdsite has (like Buffer and pages' tweet buttons, for example), you can use a [crossposter](https://mastodon-twitter-poster.herokuapp.com), which will repost your tweets to Mastodon. As for phone apps, I recommend [Tootdon](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=club.tootdon.app) and [Pawoo](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.pxv.pawoo) for Android, but if you open your instance's website on a browser, it'll suggest that you "install" an app, which is a mobile version of the site, with notifications and a proper icon. You can check a [complete list of apps here](https://github.com/tootsuite/documentation/blob/master/Using-Mastodon/Apps.md). For a number of users, it has less than it's rival, but I don't care for millions of users if they are not paying attention to my posts or not posting anything I want to see. Also, I'm trying to keep my social networks smaller, and I'm avoiding following dozens (or hundreds) of profiles. So far, I had more interesting and "meaningful" conversations on Mastodon. A full list of apps can be found here. You can join Mastodon on [mastodon.social](https://mastodon.social/about/), and follow me [here - @[email protected]](https://mastodon.social/@falcon). See you there and happy tooting.