Let me start out by saying how I think this myth became the reality for many… Obviously, a few journalists declared the Fediverse to be complicated, and this got picked up quickly by those who were considering whether to open accounts in the Fediverse (I’m not going to discuss journalists confusing Mastodon with being the actual Fediverse).
Most journalists were only really aware of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, etc for the reason that they were centralised, marketed/lobbied for by big companies who they knew, and the popular marketing blog sites shared posts only to these sites. Change is terrifying for many people (yes, I know some thrive on change like a drug) and what is worse for a popular journalist with tens of thousands of followers on Twitter, to start somewhere new with zero followers, and no algorithm to boost them. They’d start out on an equal footing with the likes of you and me.
The second part of the reason has more to do with existing users of the Fediverse (me included). I’ve always been of the opinion I should give a good overview along with the context of what/why something is done. Because the Fediverse can be full of options and choices, this can be too complex. We tried explaining it was no more complicated than choosing an e-mail service provider, and then mailing someone at a different e-mail domain (assuming e-mail was understood by journalists and average users). This was just wrong on our part as we were mixing apples and oranges in the eyes of some journalists.
Users coming from a legacy centralised service like Twitter have one set of Twitter’s rules, one moderation team who rules for/against you, who can ban you forever, everyone has a plain Twitter handle, and everything works the same way.
So, what should we have done? Well, I think it should go something more like this:
* We recommend a single instance to sign up at, either knowing the person may have a particular interest, or we recommend the biggest instance, or maybe one representing their country. That’s one place to go, sign up, complete a profile, and start posting.
* They won’t have an algorithm to fill their feed, so they should use the search for finding favourite hobbies and people they know, and follow those.
* A user can reshare, like, bookmark, or reply to any post they see, just like they are already used to.
* If there are posts they don’t like, or which offends them, they can mute, block or report the user, or they can even block the entire domain (instance).
* They install a mobile app and connect by specifying the site’s URL, with their ID and password to authenticate.
* User shares their profile elsewhere with @username@server.
And that’s where it should have ended. Nothing is cast in stone so a user can later migrate to another instance or one of the other social networks in the Fediverse. The only real difference to a centralised network, is that the username handle also includes the server URL where they signed up for the Fediverse. If we ignore all the contextual background as to how the Fediverse works, a normal user’s browsing and posting experience is much the same as anywhere else.
Decentralisation and federation (even peer to peer) are really exciting, and do offer some real benefits, but maybe that is not at all important for most prospective users. It’s true too that user culture does differ between all social networks, and if a prospective user is a ham radio operator, then I’d recommend up front they join the main ham radio Mastodon instance, or if they identify as LGBTQ+ there are LGBTQ+ friendly instances, or if from South Africa I’d recommend they start out at Mastodon dot Africa, etc.
If we want to tout any benefits, then they really need to also be kept short and simple:
* No adverts can be pushed into your feed
* You see just the posts for profiles or hashtags that you follow
* If you don’t like the rules of your instance, you can migrate elsewhere and still keep your followers
* From where you are, you can find and follow anyone on a different Fediverse server
* You have 500 (depending on which instance) characters per post
* Many different servers means the whole network cannot just be censored
* Can do polls
* Auto translation
* Etc
Journalism is a real power for good, but if the subject matter is not thoroughly and objectively understood, it can also muddy the waters…
Image credit: Google Gemini