By Karen Keiller

Have you been wondering if there is an alternative to using traditional social media designed to enrage and sell you stuff? Are you disturbed that your Uncle George has started drinking his own urine because he’s convinced of the health benefits? Do you throw up your hands in despair at the firehouse of dis- and misinformation in the world?

Want to find out more about alternative social media?

My own journey with Mastodon began in November 2022. With my colleague Emily Villanueva, we created Mastodon accounts (mine is @karenkeiller@indieweb.social). I deleted Facebook et cetera from my devices. I followed hashtags (for example, #alberta, #HNOM (Hockey Night On Mastodon), #libraries, #transrightsarehumanrights), and accounts (from @winnipegfreepress@journa.host to @FediGarden@social.growyourown.services and @scholarsportal@mstdn.ca). At first, it seemed empty and quiet. On the fediverse (a portmanteau of federated and universe), the algorithms don’t create your feed. You curate your feed.

Mastodon is one part of the fediverse. The fediverse is built on the ActivityPub protocol, with many distinct instances, each with its own rules and cultures. What’s an instance? Go back and read the paragraph above – the instances that I reference are indieweb.social, journa.host, social.growyourown.services and mstdn.ca. According to fedidb.com there are over 40K active servers (or instances) on the fediverse.

On February 11, the Library is hosting an event to help you understand the fediverse.

Join Robert Gehl, author of Move Slowly and Build Bridges: Mastodon, the Fediverse, and the Struggle for Democratic Social Media, published by Oxford University Press, for a book launch and panel discussion on alternative social media.

Robert is the Ontario Research Chair of Digital Governance for Social Justice at York University in Toronto, Canada. Previously, Robert held an endowed research chair at Louisiana Tech and a Fulbright Chair of Communication, Media, and Film at the University of Calgary, with approximately 30 articles in academic journals such as New Media & Society, Fibreculture, Social Media + Society, and Information, Communication & Society. Previous books include “Reverse Engineering Social Media,” which won the Nancy Baym Book Award from the Association of Internet Researchers, as well as “Weaving the Dark Web” and “Social Engineering,” published in 2022 by MIT Press.

Move Slowly and Build Bridges: Mastodon, the Fediverse, and the Struggle for Democratic Social Media is available from the MacEwan University Library.

Following Dr. Gehl’s presentation, we will have a panel, joined by:

  • Jordan Foster, Assistant Professor, MacEwan University
  • Dawn Walker, coSocial.CA Board Member
  • Chad Ohman, Mastodon Canada Administrator

The event is free, but please register so we can know how many chairs to put out and cookies to order.

And, if you want to get started on Mastodon today, I suggest you visit fedi.tips.

Today, I’m happy using the Ice Cubes app. I have found a group of Jets hockey fans to commiserate with, and I know there are people who are passionate about issues ranging from Canadian politicians getting off commercial social media to #dogsonmastodon. Thanks to a cadre of moderators and the general civility of the fediverse, I have never witnessed the toxic sludge I hear has invaded commercial social media.