Twitter is burning, let's take the opportunity to vote with our fingers for a new way of doing social media that puts people and communities at the core.
In this episode I give a very brief, very basic explainer about the Fediverse for those who have never heard of it or aren't sure what it is or how it works.
hello and welcome to social media for humans the podcast that empowers you to do social differently your host Alexis Bushnell and her guests discuss their experience of social media as business owners users and ultimately humans with insights and advice to help you find an effective and ethical strategy that works for you grab yourself a drink and join the conversation.
Alexis:
hi hello hi I'm Alexis my pronouns are she her it has been sometime I am going to ask you to pretend that it has not been and just go with me as I talk to you about the Fediverse. So with talk well the launch of BlueSky and talk of Meta's version of Twitter and yeah let's not talk about what's happening at Twitter with those things in mind I wanna kind of try and explain the Fediverse to you because I know a lot of people don't know that it exists, don't know what it is, don't know how it works don't know any of that stuff. I will preface this by saying if you are a techie person who is like uber dooba into the Fediverse this is not the episode for you, like I am gonna when I say I'm gonna boil it down to like don't have a clue terms that's where I'm at, okay that's where we're going with this. This is not gonna be the complete guide to the Fediverse this is literally entry level this is essentially what it is so that's what that's what's happening, so if you are here from the Fediverse hi probably also bye, maybe check out a previous episode. Cool, with that out the way let's go. okay the Fediverse basically is social media but nobody owns it, well no one person owns it, so whereas at the moment we have we have Facebook Instagram Twitter Snapchat Tick Tock blah blah blah okay they're all owned by companies and if you are on Instagram you cannot see tweets because you can only see tweets on Twitter and any combination, they are all separate entirely separate they cannot communicate with each other they are totally different platforms, they are owned by businesses for profit. So the Fediverse is basically the exact opposite so you have the sort of big quote platforms like Twitter Facebook Instagram Etc Mastodon is probably the best known at the moment in the Fediverse but they are open source so the code and the ability to build on those platforms and start your own essentially mini social network on each of those platforms is freely available anyone can do it, caveats nuance for the purposes of this podcast anyone can do it, okay. So you have these sort of big main Platforms in like the style of posts that are happening, there also different platforms, different communities, stuff like that but they all talk to each other so if you are anywhere on the Fediverse, again the nuance context caveats all over the place right now, generally speaking essentially regardless of where you are on the Fediverse you can see content from everywhere else on the Fediverse. So you can be on I'm going to use the traditional social media titles so that we're not confusing people but essentially you can be on Twitter looking at Instagram posts you can be on Facebook looking at TikToks, you see it all it all talks to each other, it's all, if you're listening to the audio only by the way you're missing so much like visual gesticulation happening here it's fabulous. So they all talk to each other so you don't have to be on every single platform you can pick the one that makes the most sense to you the one that you enjoy the most and you could just have a one account, you don't have to you can have accounts on multiple places you can use them for different things you can have accounts on multiple instances. So an instance, let's rewind okay, an instance essentially like a mini social media platform network things on the larger platform. So for example Mastodon, that's usually what I use, I am on the Toot Wales instance on Mastodon that is basically an instance for people who live in Wales, you can join it if you don't live in Wales but I do so that's where I tend to hang out on Mastodon. But there are also instances for disabled people, artists, neurodivergent people, activists, techy people, book fans, if you can imagine it if it's a thing there's probably an instance for it. And essentially on that instance you can then view just people who are like posting in that instance, so only people who are in that instance so for example go back to Toot Wales, I can choose to view just people I follow and the actual people in that instance are the only the people who are also on Toot Wales or I can view the whole feed of the whole Fediverse, which not gonna lie moves fast so we don't would not recommend. You can also, again I am I am talking about Mastodon here that is where like I hang out, you can follow hashtags, you can follow people, you can follow people wherever they are on the Fediverse they don't have to be on your platform or on your instance. So it's very interconnected, it is very anti-capitalist I will say that, there is an entirely separate culture on again Mastodon, I'm gonna say Mastodon I'm not going to say the Fediverse I cannot speak for other platforms, but there is a separate sort of culture on there. It is very focused on accessibility, on inclusion which is another reason I love it, I think it's amazing the ability to add alt text is just there and encouraged, people post about it all the time, like make sure that you're adding all text, so that's cool. So it is a very community driven place as well because by the nature of it you have to have somebody who is prepared to put the money up to run an instance and also the time to actually host it to moderate it to make sure it's updated and working and all of that kind of thing and the team around them depending on how big the instance is you have to have the people again to moderate it to take care of it to make sure everybody's okay everything's working nobody's got problems, and so because of that it is very community focused, again another reason why I love it. So all of this to say if you are looking to ditch Twitter which my professional recommendation is that you should be, maybe I'll do a whole separate episode on Twitter but as soon as I do the Twitter episode it will be out of date and it'll already like it'll be out of date as soon as I stop talking, anyway we're not we're not ranting about Twitter today. See if you're thinking about getting off Twitter and you're like do I try BlueSky, do I wait for Meta to launch their Twitter alternative, no, okay. My advice try the Fediverse, give it a go. I will pop links in the show notes, in the description in the doobly-doos, in the in the wherever, there'll be links in places to better information about the Fediverse than I have given here if you would like to go more in depth a little bit more about it figure out like where you would fit best where would make sense to you. But my my advice is try the Fediverse because if we want change on social media which I think if you're here you do, we we have to vote with our feet and the Fediverse is providing a community driven, no ads, it is very different difficult for businesses to exist on their in the sense of corporations for various reasons which I won't go into because that's much too, like that's not a 101 discussion. So there is, if you want social media to look different, if you want social media to be focused on people, on communities, on small businesses, on anti-capitalism, on creativity and kindness, I strongly suggest you check out the Fediverse and give it a whirl. If you have specific questions about it I cannot answer them because I am not an expert in the Fediverse, however you can, you're welcome to send them to me and I will have a hunt around the Fediverse generally and see if anybody will come on the podcast to discuss it because I feel like that might be a smart move if I'm gonna do another episode. So if you have questions about it whether you're just listening now and you're like oh you didn't mention this or I would like to know more about that right, or if you've like hopped on you've created an account maybe you paddled around and you're like oh I don't get this please explain that to me, drop your questions either like in the description if you're here on the YouTube, if you're on the podcast like audio, oh I'm so confused, then you can find me on Instagram, Alexis Bushnell, you can find me on the Fediverse Alexis Bushnell, where else am I? LinkedIn you can find me on LinkedIn I'm Alexis Bushnell there. I'm also on Facebook but I'm basically not on Facebook so don't don't find me on Facebook. I think that's maybe where I am I don't, it's been a long time since I did one of these and how do I say, how do I end these? I don't remember. oh my God it's been a year, it's been a year, so okay we're just gonna wing it. Find me on social media, ask your questions about the Fediverse, stay tuned for a new episode maybe, yeah we'll go with that. Okay toodle pip! That's definitely not how I usually end it. Hawke: if you want more regular reminders to find your own way to use social media follow Alexis on your social platform of choice all the links will be in the show notes until next time be a human