TY - JOUR TI - The digital covenant: non-centralized platform governance on the mastodon social network AU - Gehl, Robert W. AU - Zulli, Diana T2 - Information, Communication & Society AB - The majority of scholarship on platform governance focuses on for-profit, corporate social media with highly centralized network structures. Instead, we show how non-centralized platform governance functions in the Mastodon social network. Through an analysis of survey data, Github and Discourse developer discussions, Mastodon Codes of Conduct, and participant observations, we argue Mastodon’s platform governance is an exemplar of the covenant, a key concept from federalist political theory. We contrast Mastodon’s covenantal federalism platform governance with the contractual form used by corporate social media. We also use covenantal federalist theory to explain how Mastodon’s users, administrators, and developers justify revoking or denying membership in the federation. In doing so, this study sheds new light on the innovations in platform governance that go beyond the corporate/alt-right platform dichotomy. DA - 2022/12/15/ PY - 2022 DO - 10.1080/1369118x.2022.2147400 SP - 1 EP - 17 SN - 1369118x UR - https://lens.org/036-680-747-359-221 L1 - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2147400 ER - TY - THES TI - Adesão a redes sociais: Um estudo de caso da rede Mastodon AU - Vasconcelos, António DA - 2022/// PY - 2022 DP - Google Scholar M3 - Master's Thesis ST - Adesão a redes sociais UR - https://repositorio.iscte-iul.pt/handle/10071/26727 Y2 - 2023/12/17/05:17:59 L1 - https://repositorio.iscte-iul.pt/bitstream/10071/26727/1/master_antonio_barros_vasconcelos.pdf ER - TY - JOUR TI - Understanding the growth of the Fediverse through the lens of Mastodon AU - La Cava, Lucio AU - Greco, Sergio AU - Tagarelli, Andrea T2 - Applied Network Science AB - Abstract Open-source, Decentralized Online Social Networks (DOSNs) are emerging as alternatives to the popular yet centralized and profit-driven platforms like Facebook or Twitter. In DOSNs, users can set up their own server, or instance, while they can actually interact with users of other instances. Moreover, by adopting the same communication protocol, DOSNs become part of a massive social network, namely the Fediverse . Mastodon is the most relevant platform in the Fediverse to date, and also the one that has attracted attention from the research community. Existing studies are however limited to an analysis of a relatively outdated sample of Mastodon focusing on few aspects at a user level, while several open questions have not been answered yet, especially at the instance level. In this work, we aim at pushing forward our understanding of the Fediverse by leveraging the primary role of Mastodon therein. Our first contribution is the building of an up-to-date and highly representative dataset of Mastodon. Upon this new data, we have defined a network model over Mastodon instances and exploited it to investigate three major aspects: the structural features of the Mastodon network of instances from a macroscopic as well as a mesoscopic perspective, to unveil the distinguishing traits of the underlying federative mechanism; the backbone of the network, to discover the essential interrelations between the instances; and the growth of Mastodon, to understand how the shape of the instance network has evolved during the last few years, also when broading the scope to account for instances belonging to other platforms. Our extensive analysis of the above aspects has provided a number of findings that reveal distinguishing features of Mastodon and that can be used as a starting point for the discovery of all the DOSN Fediverse. DA - 2021/12// PY - 2021 DO - 10.1007/s41109-021-00392-5 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) VL - 6 IS - 1 SP - 64 J2 - Appl Netw Sci LA - en SN - 2364-8228 UR - https://appliednetsci.springeropen.com/articles/10.1007/s41109-021-00392-5 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:28:12 L1 - https://appliednetsci.springeropen.com/track/pdf/10.1007/s41109-021-00392-5 L2 - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41109-021-00392-5 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Moderating the fediverse: Content moderation on distributed social media AU - Rozenshtein, Alan Z. T2 - J. Free Speech L. DA - 2023/// PY - 2023 DP - Google Scholar VL - 3 SP - 217 ST - Moderating the fediverse UR - https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/jfspl3§ion=18&casa_token=Kb0GnCOnjGsAAAAA:ZbS2y1sJUt7moMBENuEam8hYPuWVkussHdyrMGWTeIyreraiRdht_kfIJ_8hcxfKEaFBPA Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:28:19 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Ethics of Decentralized Social Technologies: Lessons from Web3, the Fediverse, and beyond AU - Allen, Danielle AU - Lim, Woojin AU - Frankel, Eli AU - Simons, Joshua AU - Siddarth, Divya AU - Weyl, Glen DA - 2023/// PY - 2023 DP - Google Scholar ST - Ethics of Decentralized Social Technologies UR - https://philpapers.org/rec/ALLEOD Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:28:20 L1 - https://philpapers.org/archive/ALLEOD.pdf ER - TY - CONF TI - Will Admins Cope? Decentralized Moderation in the Fediverse AU - Anaobi, Ishaku Hassan AU - Raman, Aravindh AU - Castro, Ignacio AU - Zia, Haris Bin AU - Ibosiola, Damilola AU - Tyson, Gareth T2 - WWW '23: The ACM Web Conference 2023 C1 - Austin TX USA C3 - Proceedings of the ACM Web Conference 2023 DA - 2023/04/30/ PY - 2023 DO - 10.1145/3543507.3583487 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) SP - 3109 EP - 3120 LA - en PB - ACM SN - 978-1-4503-9416-1 ST - Will Admins Cope? UR - https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3543507.3583487 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:28:21 L1 - https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3543507.3583487?casa_token=HPCFuC3BczIAAAAA:0F4H7plVOq8G7oJcoHia28UgdZrz-ufLyE0PjHmpUqigNLxyKceGVqo0aiSTvljQkV5t1e0q3cY ER - TY - CHAP TI - Seven theses on the fediverse and the becoming of FLOSS AU - Mansoux, Aymeric AU - Roscam Abbing, Roel DA - 2020/// PY - 2020 DP - Google Scholar UR - https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1699767/FULLTEXT01.pdf Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:28:22 L1 - https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1699767/FULLTEXT01.pdf ER - TY - THES TI - Consumo problemático de medios sociales.?` Es el fediverso la solución? AU - García Menéndez, Ángel DA - 2023/// PY - 2023 DP - Google Scholar M3 - Master's Thesis ST - Consumo problemático de medios sociales.? UR - https://digibuo.uniovi.es/dspace/handle/10651/70432 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:28:26 L1 - https://digibuo.uniovi.es/dspace/bitstream/handle/10651/70432/TFM_AngelGarciaMenendez.pdf?sequence=5 ER - TY - CONF TI - Utilizing the Fediverse and AI-bots for Youth Engagement During COVID-19 in a Hybrid Preventative Intervention AU - Cole, Mason AU - Gary, Kevin AU - Meier, Matt AU - Gonzales, Nancy AU - Pina, Armando AU - Stoll, Ryan DA - 2024/// PY - 2024 DP - Google Scholar UR - https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/285152b6-9649-429f-98d5-77b7e3adaa66 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:28:34 L1 - https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstreams/d94c0e80-3070-4fe7-acbf-a39fa7317a62/download ER - TY - BOOK TI - Fediverse – so geht Social Media. Raus aus den Hassmedien AU - Simon, Leena AU - Pietsch, Christian AB - Sie fühlen sich unwohl, wenn Sie Facebook, Instagram oder Twitter nutzen? Fakenews, Hatespeech, Werbung und Inszenierung machen Ihnen schlechte Laune? Sie wissen nicht, was mit Ihren Daten passiert? Ihr Gefühl täuscht Sie nicht; denn das sind alles gute Gründe, die Social-Media-Großmächte zu meiden. Doch deswegen müssen Sie nicht auf das Positive der sozialen Netzwerke verzichten. Denn es gibt Alternativen, mit denen Sie Ihre Privatsphäre und Selbstbestimmung behalten. Hier zeigen wir Ihnen, welche Alternativen das sind, warum sie wirklich sozial sind und warum sie wirklich vernetzen – im Fediverse. Leena Simon und Christian Pietsch geben bieten hier einen niedrigschwelligen Einstieg ins Fediverse: Ganz ohne Buzzword-Bingo. Dieser kurz&mündig-Band ist perfekt geeignet, um ihre Freunde und Familie vom Fediverse als Alternative zu Twitter, Facebook, YouTube und vielen anderen sozialen Diensten im Internet zu überzeugen. DA - 2022/// PY - 2022 DP - pub.uni-bielefeld.de VL - 16 LA - ger SN - 978-3-934636-45-3 UR - https://pub.uni-bielefeld.de/record/2966158 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:31:29 L1 - https://pub.uni-bielefeld.de/download/2966158/2966159/kum_16_free.pdf ER - TY - BOOK TI - Le Fediverse comme système de médias sociaux alternatifs: conflits de valeurs et design des protocoles informatiques AU - Robin, Chanel AU - Giard, Eva AU - Couture, Stéphane DA - 2022/// PY - 2022 DP - Google Scholar SN - 13 978-2-923333-87-8 ST - Le Fediverse comme système de médias sociaux alternatifs UR - http://cirst2.openum.ca/files/sites/179/2022/11/CIRST_Note_2022-01.pdf Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:32:20 L1 - http://cirst2.openum.ca/files/sites/179/2022/11/CIRST_Note_2022-01.pdf ER - TY - CONF TI - Exploring content moderation in the decentralised web: the pleroma case AU - Hassan, Anaobi Ishaku AU - Raman, Aravindh AU - Castro, Ignacio AU - Zia, Haris Bin AU - De Cristofaro, Emiliano AU - Sastry, Nishanth AU - Tyson, Gareth T3 - CoNEXT '21 AB - Decentralising the Web is a desirable but challenging goal. One particular challenge is achieving decentralised content moderation in the face of various adversaries (e.g. trolls). To overcome this challenge, many Decentralised Web (DW) implementations rely on federation policies. Administrators use these policies to create rules that ban or modify content that matches specific rules. This, however, can have unintended consequences for many users. In this paper, we present the first study of federation policies on the DW, their in-the-wild usage, and their impact on users. We identify how these policies may negatively impact "innocent" users and outline possible solutions to avoid this problem in the future. C1 - New York, NY, USA C3 - Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on emerging Networking EXperiments and Technologies DA - 2021/12/03/ PY - 2021 DO - 10.1145/3485983.3494838 DP - ACM Digital Library SP - 328 EP - 335 PB - Association for Computing Machinery SN - 978-1-4503-9098-9 ST - Exploring content moderation in the decentralised web UR - https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3485983.3494838 Y2 - 2024/01/09/ L1 - https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3485983.3494838 KW - content moderation KW - collateral damage KW - federation policies ER - TY - CONF TI - The impact of Capitol Hill on Pleroma: the case for decentralised moderation AU - Hassan, Anaobi Ishaku AU - Raman, Aravindh AU - Castro, Ignacio AU - Tyson, Gareth T3 - CoNEXT-SW '21 AB - The popularity of Decentralised Web (DWeb) platforms (e.g. Pleroma, Mastodon) has grown in recent years. This has presented users with alternatives to the well-known centralised social network platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. In the DWeb, infrastructure and data ownership is decentralized and hence not under a single administrative authority. This paper explores the challenge of content moderation in such an environment. Specifically, we seek to motivate the need for better moderation technologies, via a use-case analysis of DWeb activity surrounding the 6th January 2021 events at Capitol Hill. Through empirical measurements, we inspect the activity of instances that have grown in popularity during this period, and explore the policies imposed on them by other instances. To do this, we inspect Pleroma, a major DWeb microblogging platform. We investigate the posts generated before, during and after the storming of Capitol Hill on the 12 largest instances in terms of user base and posts, and measure the policy reaction on them. C1 - New York, NY, USA C3 - Proceedings of the CoNEXT Student Workshop DA - 2021/12/07/ PY - 2021 DO - 10.1145/3488658.3493780 DP - ACM Digital Library SP - 1 EP - 2 PB - Association for Computing Machinery SN - 978-1-4503-9133-7 ST - The impact of Capitol Hill on Pleroma UR - https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3488658.3493780 Y2 - 2024/01/09/ L1 - https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3488658.3493780 ER - TY - JOUR TI - User Sentiments and Dynamics in the Decentralized Web: Reddit Migration’s Impact on Lemmy AU - Nunes, Thatiany Andrade T2 - Journal of Multimedia Information System AB - Decentralized alternatives like Mastodon and Lemmy are gaining popularity in response to growing complaints about centralized social media platforms such as Twitter and Reddit, which frequently prioritize business interests over user experience. This study employs a mixed-methods approach to scrutinize the impact of Reddit users’ migration on Lemmy. It elucidates user growth patterns, revealing significant registration spikes and centralization trends within decentralized structures. A sentiment analysis with VADER, incorporating a dataset of 48,272 comments from before and after the migration, depicts a predominantly positive sentiment towards Lemmy and criticisms of Reddit. A comprehensive survey with 354 responses from major Lemmy communities validates and supplements the findings, shedding light on users’ motivations, adaptation experiences, and long-term intentions. Furthermore, qualitative interviews with 16 purposively sampled users offer in-depth insights into individual experiences, community dynamics, and perspectives on decentralization and engagement. This study reveals a promising future for Lemmy, highlighting its adaptability and users’ commitment, and contributes valuable insights to the discourse on the sustainability and growth of decentralized platforms in a dynamic digital landscape. DA - 2023/// PY - 2023 DO - 10.33851/JMIS.2023.10.4.333 DP - www.jmis.org VL - 10 IS - 4 SP - 333 EP - 350 SN - 2383-7632 ST - User Sentiments and Dynamics in the Decentralized Web UR - http://www.jmis.org/archive/view_article?pid=jmis-10-4-333 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:34:36 L1 - http://www.jmis.org/download/download_pdf?pid=jmis-10-4-333 ER - TY - CONF TI - Challenges in the Decentralised Web: The Mastodon Case AU - Raman, Aravindh AU - Joglekar, Sagar AU - Cristofaro, Emiliano De AU - Sastry, Nishanth AU - Tyson, Gareth T2 - IMC '19: ACM Internet Measurement Conference C1 - Amsterdam Netherlands C3 - Proceedings of the Internet Measurement Conference DA - 2019/10/21/ PY - 2019 DO - 10.1145/3355369.3355572 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) SP - 217 EP - 229 LA - en PB - ACM SN - 978-1-4503-6948-0 ST - Challenges in the Decentralised Web UR - https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3355369.3355572 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:36:58 L1 - https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3355369.3355572?casa_token=lOO2tYhG4dcAAAAA:Dc10ABsgEwwTT0sHn2Ea4Uqip3RQWagbwpf_XpIfQ3VwG-xnUWt5B-bHwzFprsnx67vB1CJRsCU ER - TY - CONF TI - Follow the “mastodon”: Structure and evolution of a decentralized online social network AU - Zignani, Matteo AU - Gaito, Sabrina AU - Rossi, Gian Paolo C3 - Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media DA - 2018/// PY - 2018 DP - Google Scholar VL - 12 SP - 541 EP - 550 ST - Follow the “mastodon” UR - https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/14988 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:37:00 L1 - https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/download/14988/14838 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Information consumption and boundary spanning in decentralized online social networks: the case of mastodon users AU - La Cava, Lucio AU - Greco, Sergio AU - Tagarelli, Andrea T2 - Online Social Networks and Media DA - 2022/// PY - 2022 DP - Google Scholar VL - 30 SP - 100220 ST - Information consumption and boundary spanning in decentralized online social networks UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468696422000246?casa_token=pyRooa-dvDAAAAAA:LEddBYmodffKNAzTu4YdiQWgfBC4lVyN41oBAeGvBXqBoRN8Ej_4sl0Fi39vx05ZCcMZ8rk Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:37:05 L2 - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468696422000246?casa_token=pyRooa-dvDAAAAAA:LEddBYmodffKNAzTu4YdiQWgfBC4lVyN41oBAeGvBXqBoRN8Ej_4sl0Fi39vx05ZCcMZ8rk ER - TY - JOUR TI - Mastodon over Mammon: towards publicly owned scholarly knowledge AU - Brembs, Björn AU - Lenardic, Adrian AU - Murray-Rust, Peter AU - Chan, Leslie AU - Irawan, Dasapta Erwin T2 - Royal Society Open Science AB - Twitter is in turmoil and the scholarly community on the platform is once again starting to migrate. As with the early internet, scholarly organizations are at the forefront of developing and implementing a decentralized alternative to Twitter, Mastodon. Both historically and conceptually, this is not a new situation for the scholarly community. Historically, scholars were forced to leave social media platform FriendFeed after it was bought by Facebook in 2006. Conceptually, the problems associated with public scholarly discourse subjected to the whims of corporate owners are not unlike those of scholarly journals owned by monopolistic corporations: in both cases the perils associated with a public good in private hands are palpable. For both short form (Twitter/Mastodon) and longer form (journals) scholarly discourse, decentralized solutions exist, some of which are already enjoying some institutional support. Here we argue that scholarly organizations, in particular learned societies, are now facing a golden opportunity to rethink their hesitations towards such alternatives and support the migration of the scholarly community from Twitter to Mastodon by hosting Mastodon instances. Demonstrating that the scholarly community is capable of creating a truly public square for scholarly discourse, impervious to private takeover, might renew confidence and inspire the community to focus on analogous solutions for the remaining scholarly record—encompassing text, data and code—to safeguard all publicly owned scholarly knowledge. DA - 2023/07// PY - 2023 DO - 10.1098/rsos.230207 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) VL - 10 IS - 7 SP - 230207 J2 - R. Soc. open sci. LA - en SN - 2054-5703 ST - Mastodon over Mammon UR - https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.230207 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:37:05 L1 - https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.230207 ER - TY - CONF TI - Discovering the Landscape of Decentralized Online Social Networks through Mastodon AU - La Cava, Lucio AU - Greco, Sergio AU - Tagarelli, Andrea DA - 2022/// PY - 2022 DP - Google Scholar UR - https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3194/paper25.pdf Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:37:07 L1 - https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3194/paper25.pdf ER - TY - THES TI - Supporting the portability of profiles using the blockchain in the mastodon social network AU - Rossaro, Alessandra DA - 2019/// PY - 2019 DP - Google Scholar M3 - PhD Thesis PB - Politecnico di Torino UR - https://webthesis.biblio.polito.it/12436/ Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:37:11 L1 - https://webthesis.biblio.polito.it/secure/12436/1/tesi.pdf ER - TY - CONF TI - Mastodon content warnings: Inappropriate contents in a microblogging platform AU - Zignani, Matteo AU - Quadri, Christian AU - Galdeman, Alessia AU - Gaito, Sabrina AU - Rossi, Gian Paolo C3 - Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media DA - 2019/// PY - 2019 DP - Google Scholar VL - 13 SP - 639 EP - 645 ST - Mastodon content warnings UR - https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/3262 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:37:15 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Rethinking the “social” in “social media”: Insights into topology, abstraction, and scale on the Mastodon social network AU - Zulli, Diana AU - Liu, Miao AU - Gehl, Robert T2 - New Media & Society AB - Online interactions are often understood through the corporate social media (CSM) model where social interactions are determined through layers of abstraction and centralization that eliminate users from decision-making processes. This study demonstrates how alternative social media (ASM)—namely Mastodon—restructure the relationship between the technical structure of social media and the social interactions that follow, offering a particular type of sociality distinct from CSM. Drawing from a variety of qualitative data, this analysis finds that (1) the decentralized structure of Mastodon enables community autonomy, (2) Mastodon’s open-source protocol allows the internal and technical development of the site to become a social enterprise in and of itself, and (3) Mastodon’s horizontal structure shifts the site’s scaling focus from sheer number of users to quality engagement and niche communities. To this end, Mastodon helps us rethink “the social” in social media in terms of topology, abstraction, and scale. DA - 2020/07// PY - 2020 DO - 10.1177/1461444820912533 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) VL - 22 IS - 7 SP - 1188 EP - 1205 J2 - New Media & Society LA - en SN - 1461-4448, 1461-7315 ST - Rethinking the “social” in “social media” UR - http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444820912533 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:42:41 L1 - https://hcommons.org/deposits/download/hc:29856/CONTENT/mastonmsdraft.pdf/ L2 - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1461444820912533?casa_token=b2T5VMtC1dwAAAAA:w1qXxTQZon17JM1sQMJ4xkbC-IbUnevBSQwOMqOXuaeFXqFBsYM3ohQzbFTgg5oDrijVyceBhA ER - TY - GEN TI - Exploring Platform Migration Patterns between Twitter and Mastodon: A User Behavior Study AU - Jeong, Ujun AU - Sheth, Paras AU - Tahir, Anique AU - Alatawi, Faisal AU - Bernard, H. Russell AU - Liu, Huan AB - A recent surge of users migrating from Twitter to alternative platforms, such as Mastodon, raised questions regarding what migration patterns are, how different platforms impact user behaviors, and how migrated users settle in the migration process. In this study, we elaborate on how we investigate these questions by collecting data over 10,000 users who migrated from Twitter to Mastodon within the first ten weeks following the ownership change of Twitter. Our research is structured in three primary steps. First, we develop algorithms to extract and analyze migration patterns. Second, by leveraging behavioral analysis, we examine the distinct architectures of Twitter and Mastodon to learn how user behaviors correspond with the characteristics of each platform. Last, we determine how particular behavioral factors influence users to stay on Mastodon. We share our findings of user migration, insights, and lessons learned from the user behavior study. DA - 2023/11/19/ PY - 2023 DP - arXiv.org PB - arXiv ST - Exploring Platform Migration Patterns between Twitter and Mastodon UR - http://arxiv.org/abs/2305.09196 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:42:48 L1 - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2305.09196.pdf L2 - https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.09196 KW - Computer Science - Computers and Society KW - Computer Science - Social and Information Networks ER - TY - CONF TI - Network analysis of the information consumption-production dichotomy in mastodon user behaviors AU - La Cava, Lucio AU - Greco, Sergio AU - Tagarelli, Andrea C3 - Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media DA - 2022/// PY - 2022 DP - Google Scholar VL - 16 SP - 1378 EP - 1382 UR - https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/19391 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:42:49 L1 - https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/download/19391/19163 ER - TY - CONF TI - Flocking to Mastodon: Tracking the Great Twitter Migration AU - He, Jiahui AU - Zia, Haris Bin AU - Castro, Ignacio AU - Raman, Aravindh AU - Sastry, Nishanth AU - Tyson, Gareth T2 - IMC '23: ACM Internet Measurement Conference C1 - Montreal QC Canada C3 - Proceedings of the 2023 ACM on Internet Measurement Conference DA - 2023/10/24/ PY - 2023 DO - 10.1145/3618257.3624819 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) SP - 111 EP - 123 LA - en PB - ACM SN - 9798400703829 ST - Flocking to Mastodon UR - https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3618257.3624819 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:42:50 L1 - https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3618257.3624819?casa_token=d0ktbWB4iTEAAAAA:KV_aFy9bL4iIzKlMHyL3HS7DiES5fnTfCLyqpqt2-_-SJ-pOVscdO-2fdD_mwLGjg-SKcRP4oXM ER - TY - CONF TI - Trust as the Elephant in the Room: Security Evaluation of Decentralized Online Social Networks with Mastodon AU - Laux, Lea AU - Erd\Hodi, László AU - Selgrad, Kai C3 - Norsk IKT-konferanse for forskning og utdanning DA - 2023/// PY - 2023 DP - Google Scholar ST - Trust as the Elephant in the Room UR - https://www.ntnu.no/ojs/index.php/nikt/article/view/5653 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:42:52 L1 - https://www.ntnu.no/ojs/index.php/nikt/article/download/5653/5098 ER - TY - GEN TI - Multi-task dialog act and sentiment recognition on Mastodon AU - Cerisara, Christophe AU - Jafaritazehjani, Somayeh AU - Oluokun, Adedayo AU - Le, Hoa AB - Because of license restrictions, it often becomes impossible to strictly reproduce most research results on Twitter data already a few months after the creation of the corpus. This situation worsened gradually as time passes and tweets become inaccessible. This is a critical issue for reproducible and accountable research on social media. We partly solve this challenge by annotating a new Twitter-like corpus from an alternative large social medium with licenses that are compatible with reproducible experiments: Mastodon. We manually annotate both dialogues and sentiments on this corpus, and train a multi-task hierarchical recurrent network on joint sentiment and dialog act recognition. We experimentally demonstrate that transfer learning may be efficiently achieved between both tasks, and further analyze some specific correlations between sentiments and dialogues on social media. Both the annotated corpus and deep network are released with an open-source license. DA - 2018/07/13/ PY - 2018 DP - arXiv.org PB - arXiv UR - http://arxiv.org/abs/1807.05013 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:42:59 L1 - https://arxiv.org/pdf/1807.05013.pdf L2 - https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.05013 KW - Computer Science - Computation and Language ER - TY - THES TI - Applying Uses and Gratifications Theory to Investigate Social Media User's Motivations for Mastodon AU - Wang, Mian DA - 2021/// PY - 2021 DP - Google Scholar M3 - PhD Thesis PB - University of Cincinnati UR - https://search.proquest.com/openview/e41d4df7548243e91534c9f551716f6b/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:43:00 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Journalism, Media Research, and Mastodon: Notes on the Future AU - Braun, Joshua T2 - Digital Journalism DA - 2023/05/10/ PY - 2023 DO - 10.1080/21670811.2023.2208619 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) SP - 1 EP - 8 J2 - Digital Journalism LA - en SN - 2167-0811, 2167-082X ST - Journalism, Media Research, and Mastodon UR - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21670811.2023.2208619 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:43:24 L2 - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21670811.2023.2208619?casa_token=i419RJMsgzwAAAAA%3Ae7AqMgUV3mFmNVDCNuKuzJS9-Y0spQwiSdolRKOUnjDmUY76XA4I_0nPQXAfpPub8RBNHqMqmw& ER - TY - JOUR TI - Software presentation: Rtoot : Collecting and Analyzing Mastodon Data AU - Schoch, David AU - Chan, Chung-hong T2 - Mobile Media & Communication DA - 2023/09// PY - 2023 DO - 10.1177/20501579231176678 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) VL - 11 IS - 3 SP - 575 EP - 578 J2 - Mobile Media & Communication LA - en SN - 2050-1579, 2050-1587 ST - Software presentation UR - http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20501579231176678 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:43:26 L2 - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20501579231176678 ER - TY - JOUR TI - The environmental footprint of social media hosting: Tinkering with Mastodon AU - Laser, Stefan AU - Pasek, Anne AU - Sørensen, Estrid AU - Hogan, Mel AU - Ojala, Mace AU - Fehrenbacher, Jens AU - Hepach, M. AU - Çelik, Leman AU - Ravi Kumar, K. T2 - EASST Review DA - 2022/// PY - 2022 DP - Google Scholar VL - 41 IS - 3 ST - The environmental footprint of social media hosting UR - https://www.easst.net/article/the-environmental-footprint-of-social-media-hosting-tinkering-with-mastodon/ Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:43:32 L2 - https://easst.net/easst-review/41-3/the-environmental-footprint-of-social-media-hosting-tinkering-with-mastodon/ ER - TY - THES TI - Business stealing in a decentralized social network-The case of Mastodon AU - Dachert, Mathias DA - 2023/// PY - 2023 DP - Google Scholar M3 - master thesis UR - https://www.sciencespo.fr/ecole-recherche/sites/sciencespo.fr.ecole-recherche/files/Master_Thesis_Mathias_Dachert.pdf Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:43:36 L1 - https://www.sciencespo.fr/ecole-recherche/sites/sciencespo.fr.ecole-recherche/files/Master_Thesis_Mathias_Dachert.pdf ER - TY - JOUR TI - Exploring user perceived beliefs, evaluations, and gratifications in ASM: Applying expectancy-value approach for U&G theory on Mastodon instance Liker. social AU - Liao, Kai Hung T2 - Frontiers in Communication DA - 2023/// PY - 2023 DP - Google Scholar VL - 8 SP - 1288614 ST - Exploring user perceived beliefs, evaluations, and gratifications in ASM UR - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2023.1288614/full?fbclid=IwAR1ZqKqlE1-BjfR7KKD1dMUfXlnF0ai52L0VWkmYKWUKqD3McamnAY81J3c_aem_AVv00VWEk_GBVp5_pAGBaSI7Um_yfF32K7hGjqrSdRgoglkUNWD8fMVlznWCFgjVCaU Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:43:39 L2 - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2023.1288614/full?fbclid=IwAR1ZqKqlE1-BjfR7KKD1dMUfXlnF0ai52L0VWkmYKWUKqD3McamnAY81J3c_aem_AVv00VWEk_GBVp5_pAGBaSI7Um_yfF32K7hGjqrSdRgoglkUNWD8fMVlznWCFgjVCaU ER - TY - MANSCPT TI - Decentralized Social Networks: Pros and Cons of the Mastodon Platform AU - Shaw, Charlot R. DA - 2020/// PY - 2020 DP - Google Scholar ST - Decentralized Social Networks UR - https://umm-csci.github.io/senior-seminar/seminars/spring2020/shaw.pdf Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:43:41 L1 - https://umm-csci.github.io/senior-seminar/seminars/spring2020/shaw.pdf ER - TY - CONF TI - Unveiling the Dark Side of Social Media: Developing the First Galician Corpus for Misogyny Detection on Twitter and Mastodon AU - Álvarez Crespo, Lucía María AU - Castro, Laura M. C3 - VI Congreso Xove TIC: impulsando el talento científico. Octubre, 2023, A Coruña DA - 2023/// PY - 2023 DP - Google Scholar SP - 87 EP - 90 PB - Universidade da Coruña, Servizo de Publicacións ST - Unveiling the Dark Side of Social Media UR - https://ruc.udc.es/dspace/handle/2183/34240 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:43:42 L1 - https://ruc.udc.es/dspace/bitstream/handle/2183/34240/XoveTIC_2023_proceedings_Parte14.pdf?sequence=3 ER - TY - GEN TI - Uses and Gratifications of Alternative Social Media: Why do people use Mastodon? AU - Lee, Kijung AU - Wang, Mian AB - The primary purpose of this investigation is to answer the research questions; 1) What are users' motivations for joining Mastodon?; 2) What are users' gratifications for using Mastodon?; and 3) What are the primary reasons that the users continue to use Mastodon? We analyzed the collected data from the perspective of the Uses and Gratifications Theory. A questionnaire was designed to measure the opinions of Mastodon users from 15 different Mastodon instances. We examined 47 items through exploratory factor analysis using principal components extraction with Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. The results extracted 7 factors of gratification sought (expectation) and 7 factors of gratification obtained. We discovered that the primary reason that the users join and use Mastodon is the ease of controlling and sheltering users' information from data mining. The findings of the gratification sought structure are similar to findings of the gratification obtained structure, and the comparison between the two groups of data suggests that users are satisfied with the ongoing use of Mastodon. DA - 2023/03/02/ PY - 2023 DP - arXiv.org PB - arXiv ST - Uses and Gratifications of Alternative Social Media UR - http://arxiv.org/abs/2303.01285 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:43:45 L1 - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2303.01285.pdf L2 - https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.01285 KW - Computer Science - Social and Information Networks KW - Computer Science - Human-Computer Interaction ER - TY - CONF TI - Mastodon Rules: Characterizing Formal Rules on Popular Mastodon Instances AU - Nicholson, Matthew N. AU - Keegan, Brian C AU - Fiesler, Casey T2 - CSCW '23: Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing C1 - Minneapolis MN USA C3 - Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing DA - 2023/10/14/ PY - 2023 DO - 10.1145/3584931.3606970 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) SP - 86 EP - 90 LA - en PB - ACM SN - 9798400701290 ST - Mastodon Rules UR - https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3584931.3606970 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:44:03 L1 - https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3584931.3606970 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Twitter vs Mastodon vs What's going on with social media? AU - Williams, Ethan T2 - Guardian (Sydney) DA - 2023/// PY - 2023 DP - Google Scholar IS - 2041 SP - 7 EP - 7 UR - https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/informit.018398021849285 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:44:13 ER - TY - BOOK TI - Mastodon for Dummies AU - Minnick, Chris AU - McCallister, Michael DA - 2023/// PY - 2023 DP - Google Scholar PB - John Wiley & Sons UR - https://books.google.com/books?hl=es&lr=&id=geWoEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=mastodon+AND+(twitter+OR+microblogging+OR+fediverse+OR+fediverso+OR+%22social+network%22+OR+decentralization+OR+decentralisation)&ots=vz5ruUovw3&sig=4WSN0k2-waKyw4er_pv9Vp7VNxk Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:44:14 ER - TY - GEN TI - Academic# TwitterMigration to Mastodon: The Role of Influencers and the Open Science Movement AU - Bittermann, André AU - Lauer, Tim AU - Peters, Fritz DA - 2023/// PY - 2023 DP - Google Scholar ST - Academic# TwitterMigration to Mastodon UR - https://www.psycharchives.org/index.php/en/item/6b0a91da-9fdd-44b1-a594-d21fd8baa69b Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:44:16 ER - TY - JOUR TI - New virtual communities for a renewed digital activism in Italy: A case study of the Bida, Cisti and Nebbia Mastodon instances AU - Sorci, Giuliana T2 - Journal of Alternative & Community Media AB - This article analyses recent developments of digital tech activism within the Italian hacker scene. Being characterized by hacktivism (the combination of hacking and politics), it first boomed in the early 2000s – engaging the anti-globalization movement, protests and counter-summits with projects like Indymedia and Autistici/Inventati. Later, it had a phase of fragmentation and an ‘evolution’, towards what Hassan and Staggenborg define as a ‘social movement community’. In this article, I will analyse what caused this ‘evolution’ and its composition, networks, frames and repertoires of action – to outline political and action perspectives pursued by these virtual ‘communities’. I will focus on those involving users of Mastodon.bida.im, Mastodon.cisti.org and Nebbia.fail independent social media, built by the radical tech collectives Bida (Bologna), Underscore (Turin) and Lab61 (Milan). From a methodological point of view, I will employ a qualitative research method: analysis of specialistic literature, blogs and documents edited by activists, semi-structured qualitative interviews and observant participation. DA - 2021/04/01/ PY - 2021 DO - 10.1386/joacm_00095_1 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) VL - 6 IS - 1 SP - 87 EP - 101 LA - en SN - 2634-4726, 2206-5857 ST - New virtual communities for a renewed digital activism in Italy UR - https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/joacm_00095_1 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:44:21 L1 - https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Giuliana-Sorci/publication/358095152_New_virtual_communities_for_a_renewed_digital_activism_in_Italy_A_case_study_of_the_Bida_Cisti_and_Nebbia_Mastodon_instances/links/61fe6120702c892cef0794d0/New-virtual-communities-for-a-renewed-digital-activism-in-Italy-A-case-study-of-the-Bida-Cisti-and-Nebbia-Mastodon-instances.pdf ER - TY - CONF TI - Hard-coded Censorship in Open Source Mastodon Clients-How Free is Open Source? AU - Naskali, Juhani C3 - Tethics DA - 2020/// PY - 2020 DP - Google Scholar SP - 86 EP - 98 UR - https://www.utupub.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/162401/FP_6.pdf?sequence=1 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:46:01 L1 - https://www.utupub.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/162401/FP_6.pdf?sequence=1 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Calling the User: Interpellation and Narration of User Subjectivity in Mastodon and Trans* Feminist Servers AU - Niederberger, Shusha T2 - A Peer-Reviewed Journal About DA - 2023/// PY - 2023 DP - Google Scholar VL - 12 IS - 1 SP - 177 EP - 191 ST - Calling the User UR - https://aprja.net/article/view/140449 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:46:03 L1 - https://aprja.net/article/download/140449/184385 ER - TY - SLIDE TI - The structure of a decentralized online social network: Mastodon A2 - Zignani, Matteo A2 - Gaito, Sabrina A2 - Cherifi, Chantal A2 - Rossi, Gian Paolo DA - 2018/// PY - 2018 M3 - poster ST - The structure of a decentralized online social network UR - https://hal.science/hal-02444909/ Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:46:05 ER - TY - CONF TI - Examination of Hard-Coded Censorship in Open Source Mastodon Clients AU - Naskali, Juhani C3 - ETHICOMP 2020 DA - 2020/// PY - 2020 DP - Google Scholar SP - 333 UR - https://vbn.aau.dk/ws/portalfiles/portal/413110611/Open_Access_Abstract.pdf#page=335 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:49:50 L1 - https://vbn.aau.dk/ws/portalfiles/portal/413110611/Open_Access_Abstract.pdf#page=335 ER - TY - THES TI - Amosando o Lado Escuro das redes sociais: desenvolvemento do primeiro corpus en lingua galega para a detección de misoxinia en Twitter e Mastodon AU - Álvarez Crespo, Lucía María DA - 2023/// PY - 2023 DP - Google Scholar M3 - Traballo fin de grao ST - Amosando o Lado Escuro das redes sociais UR - https://ruc.udc.es/dspace/handle/2183/33351 Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:51:26 ER - TY - BOOK TI - Manual breve de Mastodon AU - Orihuela, José Luis DA - 2023/// PY - 2023 DP - Google Scholar PB - Ediciones Universidad de Navarra (EUNSA) UR - https://www.eunsa.es/media/universidad_navarra/files/book-attachment-7790.pdf Y2 - 2024/01/10/07:51:28 ER - TY - CONF TI - Dapping into the Fediverse: Analyzing What’s Trending on Mastodon Social AU - Al-khateeb, Samer AB - AbstractSocial media has changed the way we consume information daily. Most social media sites are centralized, meaning they are owned by a single entity, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. However, recently other forms of social media sites known as decentralized social networks are getting popular. These platforms are understudied. Hence in this exploratory research, one of the most prominent decentralized social platforms known as Mastodon Social has been studied. A review of what others have focused on when it comes to studying decentralized social networks has been conducted. Scripts to collect data from Mastodon Social are shared and analyses of the collected data with many valuable insights are provided.KeywordsMastodon SocialFederated networksDecentralized social networksToxicity analysisSentiments analysisSocial network analysisBots C3 - Springer eBooks DA - 2022/01/01/ PY - 2022 SP - 101 EP - 110 UR - https://lens.org/106-154-663-277-138 ER - TY - PCOMM TI - Mastodon: a move to publicly owned scholarly knowledge AU - Brembs, Björn AU - Lenardic, Adrian AU - Chan, Leslie AB - Letter to the Editor DA - 2023/02/21/ PY - 2023 DP - www.nature.com LA - en ST - Mastodon UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00486-3 Y2 - 2024/01/10/09:41:58 L1 - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00486-3.pdf L2 - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00486-3 KW - Media KW - Communication KW - Institutions ER - TY - GEN TI - Twitter and Mastodon presence of highly-cited scientists AU - Siebert, Maximilian AU - Siena, Leonardo Maria AU - Ioannidis, John P. A. AB - Social media platforms have an increasing influence in biomedical and other disciplines of science and public health. While Twitter has been a popular platform for scientific communication, changes in ownership have led some users to consider migrating to other platforms such as Mastodon. We aimed to investigate how many top-cited scientists are active on these social media platforms, the magnitude of the migration to Mastodon, and correlates of Twitter presence. A random sample of 900 authors was examined among those who are at the top-2% of impact based on a previously validated composite citation indicator using Scopus data. Searches for their personal Twitter accounts were performed in early December 2022, and re-evaluations were performed at 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and 2 months (February 6, 2023). 262/900 (29.1%) of highly-cited scholars had Twitter accounts, and only 9/800 (1%) had Mastodon accounts. Female gender, North American and Australia locations, younger publication age, and clinical medicine or social science expertise correlated with higher percentages of Twitter use. The vast majority of highly-cited author users of Twitter had few followers and tweets. Only 6 had more than 10,000 followers and none had more than 100,000. One limitation of our study is that it is possible that some accounts, especially with Mastodon, could not be detected. However, the study suggests that Twitter remains the preferred social media platform for highly-cited authors, and Mastodon has not yet challenged Twitter’s dominance. Moreover, most highly-cited scientists with Twitter accounts have limited presence in this medium. DA - 2023/04/24/ PY - 2023 DO - 10.1101/2023.04.23.537950 DP - bioRxiv LA - en PB - bioRxiv UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.23.537950v1 Y2 - 2024/01/10/09:47:07 L1 - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2023/04/24/2023.04.23.537950.full.pdf ER - TY - JOUR TI - Mastodon: Datenschutzfreundliche Twitter-Alternative AU - Kelber, Ulrich T2 - Datenschutz und Datensicherheit - DuD DA - 2022/07/01/ PY - 2022 DO - 10.1007/s11623-022-1630-7 DP - Springer Link VL - 46 IS - 7 SP - 412 EP - 412 J2 - Datenschutz Datensich LA - de SN - 1862-2607 ST - Mastodon UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11623-022-1630-7 Y2 - 2024/01/10/11:28:27 L1 - https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11623-022-1630-7.pdf ER - TY - CHAP TI - Emerging Forms of Sociotechnical Organisation: The Case of the Fediverse AU - Anderlini, Jacopo AU - Milani, Carlo B. T2 - University of Westminster Press AB - Recently, following events at Cambridge Analytica that put commercial social media under scrutiny, a public debate emerged around corporate digital platforms focused not only on critically analysing their social, economic, political impact but on the creation of alternative spaces of digital communication, organisation and conviviality. The key focus of this chapter is the reappropriation of technology intended as a way to conceive ‘appropriate’ social and technical organisation in opposition to the forms of exploitation and capture put in place by digital platforms. How do practices of reappropriation occur to prefigure new sociotechnical imaginaries and to shape digital spaces and infrastructures, social interactions and relations? In which ways does they engender forms of mutualism? What are the conditions required for the emergence of practices for the reappropriation of technology? What are the configurations, representations and encounters that constitute emerging digital communities?
In this chapter, these questions will be examined taking into account the constitution and development of the ‘Fediverse’ – more than a social network, a network of networks – focusing on a digital community that has been at the centre of the authors’ digital ethnographical work since 2018. This case study will be analysed through different standing points and dichotomic tensions: infrastructure (de-centralisation/distribution), design (mutual conditioning/mutual aid), governance (heteronomy/autonomy).
DA - 2022/11/01/ PY - 2022 DP - www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk LA - en ST - Emerging Forms of Sociotechnical Organisation UR - https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/chapters/e/10.16997/book54.m/ Y2 - 2024/01/10/11:28:37 L1 - https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/chapters/10.16997/book54.m/download/5846/ L2 - https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/chapters/e/10.16997/book54.m/ ER - TY - JOUR TI - Fediverse’s evolution from the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory | Fast Capitalism AU - Meza-Cano, José Manuel AU - González-Santiago, Edith AB - This paper begins by mentioning some problems we found in social networks belonging to corporations such as Facebook and Twitter, emphasizing the inclusion of algorithmic timelines, the verticality of decisions that respond to market logic, and the privacy of users’ data. This research gives rise to presenting open-source social networks as a democratic and safer alternative for their users. These social networks shape the Fediverse, the result of the union of the words Federation- Universe, and whose history and evolution we describe. We expose the main postulates of the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) for using this theory to conduct the Fediverse analysis, characterizing it as an Activity System, and thus, investigating the foremost tensions, reasons for change, and results. Among the findings of this analysis are: the preference of users for specific interfaces, the shift in the choice of social networks by users, the suggestions and opinions of the user community, and their influence on the programming development of social networks, promotion, or abandonment of projects by developers and change in the protocols used to connect the networks. We conclude this work by emphasizing that the CHAT allows this type of systemic analysis to be carried out from the critical moments and historical milestones of a system in constant change, such as the Fediverse. Furthermore, the proposal is made that universities are those institutions with prestige and infrastructure that can promote research, criticism, and reflection on the use of social networks for the benefit of users of the social Internet. Keywords: activity system; psychology; social networks; technological mediation. DA - 2023/// PY - 2023 DP - fastcapitalism.journal.library.uta.edu LA - en-US UR - https://fastcapitalism.journal.library.uta.edu/index.php/fastcapitalism/article/view/481 Y2 - 2024/01/10/11:28:58 L1 - https://fastcapitalism.journal.library.uta.edu/index.php/fastcapitalism/article/download/481/547 ER - TY - CONF TI - The Footprints of a “Mastodon”: How a Decentralized Architecture Influences Online Social Relationships AU - Zignani, Matteo AU - Quadri, Christian AU - Gaito, Sabrina AU - Cherifi, Hocine AU - Rossi, Gian Paolo T2 - IEEE INFOCOM 2019 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications Workshops (INFOCOM WKSHPS) AB - Decentralized online social networks (DOSNs) have recently emerged as a viable solution to preserve the users' privacy and ensure higher users' control over the contents they publish. However, little is known about the backlashes that the decentralized organization and management of these platforms may have on the overlaid social network. This paper fills the gap. Specifically, we investigate how a decentralized architecture based on distributed servers impacts the structure of the users' neighborhood and their ego-networks. Our analysis relies on social data gathered from the decentralized micro-blogging platform Mastodon, the newest and fastest-growing decentralized alternative to Twitter. Our findings highlight that the social network supported by each server, namely instance, has a specific footprint in terms of degree distribution and clustered structure of the ego-networks of its members. Further, how users connect to people hosted in other instances is heavily bound by the server they are in. Moreover, users who tend to establish relationships in outer instances prefer to use a bunch of servers. Finally, we show that the ego-networks of the users are more clustered within the instance boundary, i.e. triangles are more likely to form among members of the same instance. All these findings suggest that the decentralization drives the social network to a structure that can be potentially very different from the usual one typical of centralized online social networks. Thus, the architecture of a DOSN is a factor developers and researchers should take into account when designing this kind of social platforms. C3 - IEEE INFOCOM 2019 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications Workshops (INFOCOM WKSHPS) DA - 2019/04// PY - 2019 DO - 10.1109/INFCOMW.2019.8845221 DP - IEEE Xplore SP - 472 EP - 477 ST - The Footprints of a “Mastodon” UR - https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8845221 Y2 - 2024/01/10/11:29:08 L1 - https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stampPDF/getPDF.jsp?tp=&arnumber=8845221&ref=aHR0cHM6Ly9pZWVleHBsb3JlLmllZWUub3JnL2RvY3VtZW50Lzg4NDUyMjE= L2 - https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8845221 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Drivers of social influence in the Twitter migration to Mastodon AU - Cava, Lucio La AU - Aiello, Luca Maria AU - Tagarelli, Andrea T2 - Scientific Reports AB - The migration of Twitter users to Mastodon following Elon Musk’s acquisition presents a unique opportunity to study collective behavior and gain insights into the drivers of coordinated behavior in online media. We analyzed the social network and the public conversations of about 75,000 migrated users and observed that the temporal trace of their migrations is compatible with a phenomenon of social influence, as described by a compartmental epidemic model of information diffusion. Drawing from prior research on behavioral change, we delved into the factors that account for variations of the effectiveness of the influence process across different Twitter communities. Communities in which the influence process unfolded more rapidly exhibit lower density of social connections, higher levels of signaled commitment to migrating, and more emphasis on shared identity and exchange of factual knowledge in the community discussion. These factors account collectively for 57% of the variance in the observed data. Our results highlight the joint importance of network structure, commitment, and psycho-linguistic aspects of social interactions in characterizing grassroots collective action, and contribute to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms that drive processes of behavior change of online groups. DA - 2023/12/07/ PY - 2023 DO - 10.1038/s41598-023-48200-7 DP - www.nature.com VL - 13 IS - 1 SP - 21626 J2 - Sci Rep LA - en SN - 2045-2322 UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-48200-7 Y2 - 2024/01/10/11:43:21 L1 - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-48200-7.pdf KW - Information technology KW - Computer science ER - TY - CONF TI - More of the Same? A Study of Images Shared on Mastodon’s Federated Timeline AU - Nobre, Gabriel P. AU - Ferreira, Carlos H. G. AU - Almeida, Jussara M. A2 - Hopfgartner, Frank A2 - Jaidka, Kokil A2 - Mayr, Philipp A2 - Jose, Joemon A2 - Breitsohl, Jan T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science AB - We offer a first analysis of image content sharing on the Mastodon platform, one of the currently most popular decentralized online social networks. Our study relies on a dataset of toots gathered from a federated timeline (hosted in mastodon.social), consisting of over 1 million images shared by more than 100 thousand users. We focus on two key aspects: (i) profiling image content in terms of presence of explicit content (e.g., violence) and (ii) exploring potential channels between Mastodon instances as well as between Mastodon and the rest of the Web. Our main results offer evidence of a large amount of explicit content shared in the environment as well as the frequent presence of such content on the Web. In addition, we estimate a consistent flow of images (including explicit content) from other Web platforms (e.g., Twitter, Reddit, Facebook) to Mastodon. Finally, we also observed several image co-sharing user communities, ultimately bridging instance boundaries. C1 - Cham C3 - Social Informatics DA - 2022/// PY - 2022 DO - 10.1007/978-3-031-19097-1_11 DP - Springer Link SP - 181 EP - 195 LA - en PB - Springer International Publishing SN - 978-3-031-19097-1 ST - More of the Same? L1 - https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-031-19097-1_11.pdf KW - Information dissemination KW - Decentralized online social networks KW - Images KW - Mastodon ER - TY - GEN TI - Can This Platform Survive? Governance Challenges for the Fediverse AU - Struett, Thomas AU - Sinnreich, Aram AU - Aufderheide, Patricia AU - Gehl, Rob AB - In the wake of recent high-profile crises at commercial social media platforms such as Twitter and Reddit, the “fediverse” has gained both adoption and visibility as a viable non-commercial alternative for individuals, communities, and institutions to develop channels of public communication, dialogue, and debate. In this paper, we draw upon illustrative examples from the history of digital civic discourse, and identify six ways in which history shows us how the potential benefits of the fediverse are at risk of being subverted. We will discuss several specific potential threats to these spaces of civil discourse, including: challenges inherent to distributed governance, commercial platform capture, inclusive access, moderation at scale, reputational assaults by commercial competitors, and the tacitly neoliberal techno-Romanticism familiar from previous digital innovations. These threats must be addressed collectively and proactively by key fediverse stakeholders, in an ecology whose ruling values are non-commercialism, decentralization, open source, free association, and wariness of traditional governance. CY - Rochester, NY DA - 2023/10/10/ PY - 2023 DO - 10.2139/ssrn.4598303 DP - Social Science Research Network LA - en ST - Can This Platform Survive? UR - https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=4598303 Y2 - 2024/01/10/12:06:26 KW - mastodon KW - platform governance KW - social media KW - alternative social media KW - federated social media ER - TY - GEN TI - Section 230 and the Fediverse: Instances of Mastodon's Immunity and Liability AU - Ahooja, Raghav AB - “Code is law,” scholar Lawrence Lessig famously propounded. Technological architecture defines how speech is expressed. Different social media platforms shape discourse differently by virtue of their designs. Be it by allowing users to send ‘Friend requests’ on Facebook, by fixing the character count of Tweets on Twitter, or by prescribing the maximum duration of a TikTok video - such apps shape speech, its limits, its transgressions, and its parlance. Since this space is ever-evolving, platforms with newer technological architecture continue to disrupt the expression of speech, and the newest kid on the block is Mastodon - a decentralized platform on the Fediverse - that provides its users the ability to manage and moderate their own servers (called ‘instances’) on which third-party content can be hosted. Mastodon by virtually allowing anyone to operate their own Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube equivalent empowers its users in new ways. Yet, with great power comes great responsibility. Such an innovation raises a whole set of questions about Mastodon’s liability and immunity at various levels, especially in relation to laws such as FOSTA/SESTA. In this paper, I discuss the potential answers to these questions. CY - Rochester, NY DA - 2023/04/17/ PY - 2023 DO - 10.2139/ssrn.4421665 DP - Social Science Research Network LA - en ST - Section 230 and the Fediverse UR - https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=4421665 Y2 - 2024/01/10/12:07:39 KW - policy KW - platform governance KW - social media KW - Mastodon KW - content moderation KW - Fediverse KW - Section 230 KW - Communications Decency Act KW - decentralized KW - FOSTA/SESTA KW - immunity KW - law KW - liability KW - sex trafficking ER - TY - NEWS TI - Should I join Mastodon? A scientists’ guide to Twitter’s rival AU - Stokel-Walker, Chris T2 - Nature AB - The open-source platform has added nearly half a million users in little more than a week — but should scientists make the leap? We examine the pros and cons. DA - 2022/11/10/ PY - 2022 DP - www.nature.com LA - en ST - Should I join Mastodon? UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03668-7 Y2 - 2024/01/10/12:09:07 L2 - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03668-7 KW - Society KW - Technology KW - Scientific community KW - Software ER - TY - JOUR TI - Toxicology Rounds: Is Mastodon the New Twitter for EM? AU - Gussow, Leon T2 - Emergency Medicine News AB - An abstract is unavailable. DA - 2023/02// PY - 2023 DO - 10.1097/01.EEM.0000920072.89407.2d DP - journals.lww.com VL - 45 IS - 2 SP - 12 LA - en-US SN - 1054-0725 ST - Toxicology Rounds UR - https://journals.lww.com/em-news/Fulltext/2023/02000/Toxicology_Rounds__Is_Mastodon_the_New_Twitter_for.11.aspx?context=LatestArticles Y2 - 2024/01/10/12:14:04 L2 - https://journals.lww.com/em-news/Fulltext/2023/02000/Toxicology_Rounds__Is_Mastodon_the_New_Twitter_for.11.aspx?context=LatestArticles ER -