English subtitles for clip: File:What is Mastodon.webm

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What is Mastodon?

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Mastodon is an open source social network.

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Similar to Twitter or Tumblr, users can make
profiles, post messages, images or videos,

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and, of course, follow other users.

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Messages follow a 500-character limit and
are displayed in a chronological order.

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Unlike other platforms, however, Mastodon
is decentralized, meaning that there is no

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one server, company or person running it.

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While other social media platforms are owned
and operated by a single corporation who has

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full control over everything, anyone can create
and run their own server of Mastodon.

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How does this work?

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When someone creates their own version of
Mastodon, this is called an “instance”.

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Since Mastodon is open source, anyone can
create their own instance of Mastodon with

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their own set of rules.

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Because of this, all instances are owned,
operated and moderated by the community that

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creates them, and not some large corporation
which tracks your data to sell to advertisers.

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In most cases, Mastodon instances are crowdfunded,
not financed.

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But how do these instances
communicate with one another?

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While users within an instance can, of course,
follow each other, they can also decide to

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follow users within other instances.

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So, while each instance of Mastodon is privately
operated, their users can still communicate

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with members of other servers seamlessly.

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Of course, communities who want to remain
private don’t have to communicate with other

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servers; this is in the hands of its users.

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Mastodon also offers effective anti-abuse
tools to help moderate instances as users

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see fit.

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Ultimately, Mastodon is a social network which
puts the user first.

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Unlike traditional social media, Mastodon
can’t go bankrupt, it can’t be sold, and

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it can’t be completely blocked by governments.

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Users are free to join whichever community
they want, and communicate with whomever they

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want.

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With over a million registered users across
multiple different languages, Mastodon is

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growing fast.

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Not sure which instance to join?

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Click the link below to find one
that’s right for you.