The fediverse (a portmanteau of “federated” and “universe”) is an amazing thing. The fediverse is basically decentralized social media. Before you start yelling in the comments about how bad social media is, you haven’t met the fediverse. Read the rest of this before you start typing the comment. The fediverse is the best “social media platform” for anyone looking to get away from the toxicity that is other platforms.
The Benefits
There are three major benefits to the fediverse. It is decentralized by default, it has no algorithm (unless you go looking), and it is interoperable with other platforms on the fediverse. It also is a great experience. Although I’m not old enough to remember it, people often equate the fediverse to the original Twitter. A smaller, more tight-knit community of people who share genuine interactions instead of engagement-farming.
Decentralization
The fediverse is decentralized like email. With email, my email can be me@business.com and yours can be you@example.com. If I email you, even though we are on different servers as noted by the part after the @ symbol, we can still communicate seamlessly. The fediverse works in the same way. I can have an account on mastodon.social and your account can be on mastodon.art but we can still follow each other and interact with each others posts. The benefit of decentralization compared to centralized media is that if you become unhappy with the way the server is being run or unhappy for other reasons, you can just move instances (the term for different hosts on the fediverse). For example, I started out my time on the fediverse with the account @agilebuckle@mastodon.social and then decided I wanted to move away from mastodon.social. I don’t have any reason to knock them really, I just wanted to try moving away from the biggest provider and try a smaller server. My account is now @agile@wehavecookies.social. Since the servers can talk to each other (unless one is blocking the other) all I had to do was create an account on the new server and follow directions to move my followers and such. As a side note, posts cannot be moved at this point so that’s kind of a bummer. Another benefit of decentralization is if one instance starts to need moderation and their moderators aren’t taking care of it, other instances can block interaction with the problematic instance and carry on with minimal to no problems.
No Algorithm
It is what it says on the tin. The only algorithms are ones that have to be set up by the user. There may be a fediverse service with an algorithm that I’m unaware of, but I haven’t run across any. Instead of an algorithm, there is a timeline with posts chronologically from newest to oldest. It only shows the people and hashtags that you follow. There is a trending timeline, and some timelines that let you see what is going on on your instance, but the default timeline is only the people you follow in chronological order. No suggestions, no nothing. Some people see this as a downside, but it helps to craft a feed you want to see and not be full of ridiculous things. It’s a more intentional way of doing things.
Interoperability
As somewhat explained in the decentralization section, not only is the fediverse interoperable between instances running the same software, but also it is also interoperable between different software. So far I’ve been referencing Mastodon since it is one of the biggest fediverse platforms. Mastodon is an alternative microblogging platform similar to X. I’m also on a platform called Pixelfed (my account where I rarely post can be found here) which is the fediverse alternative to Instagram. The benefit of interoperability means that if I want to mainly interact on Mastodon so I have an account there, but my friend mainly uses Pixelfed, I can still follow my friends on Pixelfed and it will show up in my Mastodon timeline like any other post. The ability to follow across platforms as previously described means that instead of having 5 different social accounts, if I only post on one I only need that one since I can still follow my friends on the other platforms.
Experience
The fediverse is amazing! I’m still on one of the major platforms, there is sooo much engagement farming, clickbait, people wanting you to buy their things, etc. That basically never happens on the fediverse. The fediverse doesn’t pay for views, doesn’t offer analytics, and usually doesn’t tolerate sponsorships. Pretty much the only way to make money through the fediverse would be to use affiliate links, but no one really does, that I’ve seen. The fediverse is a lot more genuine than other platforms from what I’ve heard/experienced. Since there is no algorithm, you find your niche and don’t have to deal with things outside it if you don’t want like you would have to with an algorithm.
The Elephant
There are plenty of reasons you should be on the fediverse (Email me and I’ll help you!), but there are a few downsides. My experience has been lovely and I haven’t really run into this, but some instances block other instances for one reason or another. Usually as a result of an influx of things like spam accounts, violations of an instances rules, and (depending on the instance) things like the AI policy of the instance in question. The ability to block instances is obviously a good things since it blocks the bad, but in some cases, it can be rather annoying. Due to it being relatively unheard of compared to other media, not all of the people you follow will be on the fediverse. This is a downside, however, there tends to be less influencing and so the connections you do make are usually much more genuine.
If you ever decide to get started with the fediverse, please let me know! Email me, dm me on the fediverse (my account here), or leave a comment on this post. Somehow contact me. I’d love to help make your experience the best possible.