[MN-at-Large] Mastodon: Not Just another Elephant

Thu Jun 29 13:47:06 UTC 2023

In case you are interested ... I was pleased to get an article published in the July, 2023 Braille Monitor, the flagship publication of the National Federation of the Blind, NFB. It is probably the largest, and most widely circulated publication in the blindness field.

Dave

https://nfb.org//images/nfb/publications/bm/bm23/bm2307/bm230712.htm<https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm23/bm2307/bm230712.htm>

Mastodon: Not Just another Elephant

by David Andrews

[David Andrews]From the Editor: David Andrews is well known to readers of the Braille Monitor because of his long service in monitoring and maintaining our listservs, his exemplary work as a staff member for the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute, and his steadfast work as a Federationist for at least half a century. Doing what he does best, he gives us an explanation of the evolution of social media, our participation in it, and the move we are now making to Mastodon. Here is what he says:

Bob Dylan sang, "The times they are a changing." While this is certainly true in many areas, it is especially true in Artificial Intelligence, AI, and social media.

In the area of social media, or social networks, we have seen the emergence of many social services, such as Truth Social, Parler, and Rumble. Facebook has become Meta and has changed its emphasis. TikTok has taken over much of the world, and Twitter has gone through monumental changes in the past six months or so.

Because of changes at Twitter, we have seen the emergence of Mastodon, another "micro-blogging service." The National Federation of the Blind, NFB, has dipped its toe into Mastodon, and it plans on doing much more. This article will provide you with some of the background so that you can understand what is going on and why. While it is not a how-to-do guide for Mastodon, we will also provide you with some high-level information to get you started.

Twitter was started back in 2006 and grew to be a service with approximately three hundred and thirty million users at its peak. It allows users to post messages which are 140 characters in length. This was later increased to 280 characters, which is what it is now. You can also attach audio, video, and/or pictures to messages. If you have an account on Twitter, you can "follow" people, and they can "follow" you back. They will then see anything you post. You can also use the pound sign, "#", to add key words to your posts. You can then search for these hashtags and read messages posted by others when the subject is of interest. You may or may not follow these people, but information posted by them under the hashtag will appear. For example, you could use #NFB, or #NFB23 to identify your posts. You can also send direct messages to people with whom you are connected. Twitter has been widely used by journalists, politicians, corporations, organizations, and others to disseminate information and to keep up with what is going on. The NFB has had a presence on Twitter for some time.

In October of 2022, Elon Musk, of Tesla and SpaceX fame, bought Twitter for approximately $44 billion, with a B, and took it private. Since that time, Twitter has gone through changes and suffered from a great deal of turmoil. Over half the staff has been laid off or quit. A number of users, who had previously been banned from Twitter, were allowed back on. The most famous of these is former President Donald Trump. Twitter has also stopped removing content that many found objectionable. Consequently, most people now feel the service distributes much more hate speech, conspiracy theories, and other negative content than it was doing in the past. Many minorities and marginalized groups no longer feel safe on Twitter.

Twitter also laid off its entire accessibility team in one fell swoop. The service had made substantial progress in the area of accessibility in the past few years and seemed to be genuinely committed to accessibility, but it no longer seems to be so. There are two main ways you can access Twitter: through its website, or through a third-party client or website. These "clients" are third-party software programs that give access to Twitter and run on a variety of platforms: Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android, and others. A number of clients written specifically for blind people were very popular, such as Chicken Nugget and TW Blue. In addition, many mainstream packages were also accessible, such as Twitterrific. Third-party software accessed Twitter using an API. This gave them access to the content which they could present in different ways. Twitter has cut off access via its API by most third-party clients. Consequently, blind or visually impaired people have fewer options when it comes to accessing Twitter.

It is important to understand that Twitter is a "centralized" service. This means that it controls everything. You have an account with the service, and it set the rules for who can be on and what they can post. You can think of Twitter as a huge apartment building. Individuals, organizations, etc., have apartments (accounts) in this building and interact with others. Twitter is the landlord and controls everything. You can think of Mastodon as a city filled with houses that are connected to each other. Each house is an instance or server, and the people living within it can interact with each other as well as people in other houses. Each house has its own landlord and sets its own rules.

Until October of 2022, Twitter tried observing the norms which were developing for social media. They identified content that was false, banned some people for violating their rules, and moderated content to remove hate speech and other problematic content. When Elon Musk took over, much of this went out the window. He says he is a believer in free speech, so he let many banned people back on the service and laid off much of the content moderation staff. Consequently, many people felt that there was a need for a service that was more responsibly run. Enter Mastodon!

What is Mastodon? Mastodon was started in 2017, primarily as an alternative to Twitter. It is a service with many of the same functions of Twitter, but it is structured and run differently. Because of the Mastodon name, the elephant and Mastodon reference and puns are widely used. However, for our purposes, Mastodon is a decentralized social networking and micro-blogging service which is similar to Twitter.

Like the NFB, Mastodon is a "federation" of smaller parts that come together for common purposes. The NFB has fifty-two affiliates who are all a part of the central entity or Federation. Mastodon is a part of what is called the "Fediverse." It consists of separate servers that run the same software and exchange messages and other data. Each server can set its own rules as to what kinds of content is acceptable and what isn't. They can also decide whether or not to accept messages from another server. Mastodon uses an open standard protocol for storing and exchanging information. It is called CommunityPub and is also used by some other social networks. In late May, I read that Mastodon had over eleven million users, although this may not be accurate.

Once you are signed up and start using the service, it acts much like Twitter. You post Toots instead of Tweets, and you Boost posts by others instead of retweeting them. You can also "favorite" or like toots or boosts. Each server can set its own message size; five hundred characters is the default, and one thousand- or two-thousand-character limits are used by some instances. You can follow other people, and they can follow you. Hashtags are used widely. You can access different timelines, both on your instance and in the Fediverse.

When you decide to use Mastodon, you must first pick a server and establish an account there. The prospect of picking a server seems to overwhelm many people. This is in part because there are lots of servers, also called instances, out there. I recently read that there are over seven thousand. However, it should be remembered that it is relatively easy to change instances, should you change your mind. Most people sign up via a website run by their instance. There are general instances like Mastodon.social and Tweesecake.social. There are also countless instances that cater to different interests, such as the disabled, accessibility, technology, music, food, LGBTQ+, geography, and more. The site joinMastodon.org provides lists of available servers and other useful tools. Depending on where and how you sign up for Mastodon, the server Mastodon.social may be the default choice provided. You can use it or pick another, but if you use it, the site uses a user verification system called HCAPTCHA. It, of course, is visual, but there is a process for blind users to get verified. The process is accessible-you just have to follow the steps.

Like Twitter, there are a number of ways you can access Mastodon. You can use the web, or you can use a third-party client. Most people choose an instance and sign up via its website. The software landscape is changing quickly because of the recent popularity of Mastodon. Most of the clients seem to be either for iOS or Android phones and tablets. There are not as many Windows or Mac applications. Some but not all of the clients are accessible to blind or visually impaired people. I am currently using a mainstream package called Mona, which is quite accessible, and there are others. There are versions for iOS, iPad, and the Mac. Jonathan Mosen, on his Living Blindfully Podcast, did an excellent audio tutorial on using Mona with VoiceOver. You can find it at https://www.livingblindfully.com/category/episodes/, look for episode 227. There is a version of TW Blue for Mastodon. This is a Windows application that previously gave blind people access to Twitter. It has been modified to work with Mastodon. You can download it at https://twblue.es/downloads/.

Brian Hartgen of Hartgen Consultancy is conducting a two-part audio class on Mastodon in July. Many people find his tutorials to be useful and of high quality. You can sign up for a fee at http://www.hartgen.org/Mastodon.

A number of individuals and organizations in the blindness arena feel that we should not support Twitter, since it has thumbed its nose at disabled persons. While the NFB will keep its Twitter addresses and post updates to them, we are moving our efforts and support to Mastodon, as have many other organizations and companies. We have established our own server or instance, nfb.social, and we have established two accounts on that instance, which you can follow. They are: @president at nfb.social and @nationsblind at nfb.social.

We are currently seeking input and making decisions about where we will go with our server and how we will get there. In Presidential Release 527, President Riccobono said: "We want to know, though, what ideas Federation members have for how we can use Mastodon to build the Federation community. So we want you to share information about what your experience has been in Mastodon. What are your favorite mobile applications or web-based applications for engaging in Mastodon? What tips and tricks do you have, and how would you like to see the Federation using this social media networking tool? To share those ideas, you can send us an email at mastodon at nfb.org<mailto:mastodon at nfb.org>."

To further support our members and other blind people and to help each other, we have started an internet mailing list on nfbnet.org<http://nfbnet.org/>. It is called NFB-Mastodon, and here is information on its purpose and how to join.

With increasing numbers of blind people moving to Mastodon, we know that many of you will have questions. For this reason we are establishing an internet mailing list to support you and Mastodon. The list is nfb-mastodon at nfbnet.org<mailto:nfb-mastodon at nfbnet.org>.

The purpose of the list is to support Federationists and our blind friends who may have questions about Mastodon and how to use it. Topics for discussion and questions include, but are not limited to: different Mastodon clients and their accessibility, how to sign up, how to find and follow people, and hashtags and more. Come and join us, and we will do our best to answer your questions and support you as we all explore the Fediverse together.

You can join either by sending email to nfb-mastodon-subscribe at nfbnet.org<mailto:nfb-mastodon-subscribe at nfbnet.org> and leave everything blank, or go to: http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfb-mastodon_nfbnet.org and fill out the form. You have five minutes before the form times out.

The list Tech-VI Announcement List from David Goldfield regularly posts Mastodon-related materials. Email: tech-vi+subscribe at groups.io<mailto:tech-vi+subscribe at groups.io> to subscribe. If you wish to explore Mastodon and the Fediverse further, use your favorite search engine to find information. Put in key words like Mastodon, blind, accessibility, tutorial, how-to etc., and see what comes back. It can be a little daunting, but many blind people have gone before you, and they will help.

See you on Mastodon!
@dandrews920 at tweesecake.social

 David Andrews
Chief Technology Officer
Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development
State Services for the Blind
2200 University Ave West, Suite 240, St. Paul MN 55114
Direct: 651-539-2294
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