Mastodon, is it a real Twitter alternative?

Itrsquos been a little over a month since Elon Musk bought Twitter for 44 million Things arenrsquot going as smoothly as many had hoped Instead it has been a weird month watching all the changes that have been implemented since A lot of people want to jump ship and the popular option right now seems to be Mastodon However signing up for Mastodon isnrsquot as easy as Facebook Twitter or any companies looking to harvest your data So here is a little primer to help you at the very least make an informed decision if you want to make a Mastodon account and how to do it in the simplest way possibleWhat is MastodonMastodon has similarities to Twitter but it is not Twitter at the same time There is a fundamental difference in the way it works To begin with it doesnrsquot have a central server that stores all your data and has everyone in one place Instead it is a network of individual servers that communicate with each other to form a network The servers together as a whole form the social network It is complicated but you donrsquot really need to know exactly how it works just that it does You have access to friends family or celebrity crushes if they are savvy enough regardless of which server you are on as long as you are connected to the main network If you are wondering yes you can easily take your data and shift serversWhy is it so complicatedItrsquos built this way because it lets the server admin decide the serverrsquos rules This means that a server admin can build a chat server for just ten of their friends or for thousands of people who love anime for instance They can decide what topics are for their server what the rules are and what kind of engagement is allowed There are a lot of general servers as well where there are no focused topics and it is instead just a way to connect to the serviceYou must be thinking to yourself what about the people who created the platform donrsquot they exercise any control The answer is a little bit The person who created it Eugen Rochko could technically change the program to introduce things like ads and other nasty stuff but the control is not with him People can choose not to install or not to install those versions or could simply make a new version with features they would like to see Itrsquos open source so a skilled developer could make their own versionThere are already a few floating out there If you for some reason donrsquot like the server you are on you can just shift Your followers and your data go with you In effect your experience doesnrsquot change Also say a server is into hate speech and the people on your server donrsquot want to do anything with that your administrator could in effect make that server and its users invisible to you So there is freedom of speech and there is the right to block that speech if you donrsquot like itWhy do I want to shiftThere are several reasons you might want to shift There has been a major influx lately of new Mastodon users because of the whole Twitter fiasco This is majorly run by individuals and no single person can take over the network and do as they please Elon You have full control over your data and followers and you choose what topics you want to see or are involved inHow to get on to itIf you just want to be a user itrsquos easy Start by going to joinmastodonorg Read up about the platform Then register yourself on one of the many servers available you can do it from the links on the server section Please check for the availability of seats because most servers have limitations on how many people they let in You can add your friends on the platform directly regardless of which server they are onChoosing a server is the hardest part If you are looking for a general server there are plenty listed on the join mastodon website mastodonworld always seems to have registrations open Try to find a server with a lot of users or your initial feed and discovery feed is going to be dryMastodon also has an app that makes things a lot less complicated However get on to the app after you find a server to register on If you are still confused watch this video on YouTubehttpsyoutube9ceO6N8OX_wSign in and share your address with all your friends It is that easy