I am always looking for new Social Networks to join. I have a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Vimeo, LinkedIn, Snapchat, TikTok, Vero, Reddit, WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, SoundCloud, MixCloud, and the list goes on and on.
There are about 250+ social networks (the last time I looked for a complete list). I thought I had joined most of the big ones. All of the ones I had joined so far were owned and hosted by a single company for profit.
A few days ago I discovered Mastodon. An alternative to Twitter. Mastodon is different because several servers called instances host the network. It is a federation of servers hosting the same protocol. Because of this, no one company or person owns it. The servers are hosting the site from around the world.
And it gets better! I discovered shortly after that Mastodon was part of a larger Fediverse of alternative social networks. Which include diaspora, Mastodon, PeerTube, GNU Social, Funkwhale, Socialhome, Misskey, Hubzilla, Pleroma, PixelFed, and Friendica.
All of these social networks operate similar to Mastodon in that they are community created, powered by an alliance of servers hosting the same protocol. And all of these networks are integrated together using ActivityPub. So not only are the networks federated themselves, but also with each other. Not even Facebook and Twitter do that.
To join me on Mastodon follow this link: https://mastodon.social/invite/wU8KzJra