Social Networking (Microblogging)

My main social network is the "Fediverse", a non-commercial grouping of interlinked sites which share a common connection protocol. I can be followed as Algot at the mastodon.art server. Each server is independently operated, generally intending to serve a particular community group, though general discussion is welcomed and encouraged. There is generally a strict set of community guidelines and posts/accounts are moderated by teams of people on the lookout for hate speech and objectionable material.

Read the Code of Conduct before you sign up. There are hundreds of different servers/communities you may join, not all of them running the Mastodon software. Nonetheless, no matter what server you choose, you can connect to any other federated server. The place to start, if you want to join the fediverse, is joinmastodon.org

Federation of servers is being accomplished with "ActivityPub" an open-standards, shared protocol being developed by the World Wide Web Consortium so it can be implemented freely. This will allow a broad, decentralized system to develop, avoiding the "silo" effect of closed, commercial monoliths.

I prefer the independent social network (fediverse) over the commercial equivalents like Facebook and Twitter which I no longer use. If you follow me there, I will not follow you back. I consider the Twitter "silo" to be unsuitable for personal interactions (too much tracking and marketing of my user data).