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Tag: mastodon

  • Cloudflare Announce Mastodon Support

    Cloudflare Announce Mastodon Support

    Cloudflare is throwing its weight behind the Fediverse with its first Mastodon-compatible Supercloud server, Wildebeest.

    Mastodon has emerged as the main alternative to Twitter and differentiates itself with its decentralized design. Whereas Twitter is run by a single company, with centralized servers, anyone can set up a Mastodon server. The collective of Mastodon servers forms the “Fediverse,” with users able to sign up on one server and follow and communicate with users across all of them.

    While individuals and companies may be tempted to run their own Mastodon server, doing so can present a number of challenges, as Cloudflare highlights:

    The Mastodon gGmbH non-profit organization provides a server implementation using Ruby, Node.js, PostgreSQL and Redis. Running the official server can be challenging, though. You need to own or rent a server or VPS somewhere; you have to install and configure the software, set up the database and public-facing web server, and configure and protect your network against attacks or abuse. And then you have to maintain all of that and deal with constant updates. It’s a lot of scripting and technical work before you can get it up and running; definitely not something for the less technical enthusiasts.

    Wildebeest is designed to address these issues and help individuals and companies quickly get up and running with their own Mastodon instance:

    Wildebeest serves two purposes: you can quickly deploy your Mastodon-compatible server on top of Cloudflare and connect it to the Fediverse in minutes, and you don’t need to worry about maintaining or protecting it from abuse or attacks; Cloudflare will do it for you automatically.

    Wildebeest is not a managed service. It’s your instance, data, and code running in our cloud under your Cloudflare account. Furthermore, it’s open-sourced, which means it keeps evolving with more features, and anyone can extend and improve it.

    Given the increasing popularity of Mastodon, Cloudflare may well have a hit on its hands.

  • Medium Throws Its Weight Behind Twitter Rival Mastodon

    Medium Throws Its Weight Behind Twitter Rival Mastodon

    Medium has announced it is creating its own Mastodon instance, embracing what has emerged as a viable rival to Twitter.

    Mastodon is an open source microblogging platform, very similar to Twitter in most respects. One big difference is how people sign up. Rather than a centralized server, companies and organizations can host their own instance, or Mastodon server, to sponsor communities of like-minded individuals. Once a person signs up, however, they can follow and interact with users across all the various instances, as part of what’s known as the “Fediverse.”

    Medium has decided to host its own Mastodon instance, seeing the open source network as a positive development in the social media space.

    Today, Medium is launching a Mastodon instance at me.dm to help our authors, publications and readers find a home in the fediverse. Mastodon is an emerging force for good in social media and we are excited to join this community.

    Mastodon saw a huge uptick in traffic following Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. While the platform has lost some of those gains in recent weeks, it still stands as the best alternative to Twitter. As more companies embrace it, Mastodon could one day become a far better option than Twitter in every respect.

    For the latest tech news, you can follow this writer on Mastodon here: https://journa.host/@mattmilano

  • Free Speech Friend or Foe? Musk’s Twitter Bans Journalists & Competitor

    Free Speech Friend or Foe? Musk’s Twitter Bans Journalists & Competitor

    Elon Musk is showing he doesn’t care about free speech as much as he claims, with Twitter banning critical journalists and links to competitor Mastodon.

    Musk purchased Twitter on the promise of respecting free speech and has rolled back many of the content moderation measures that were in place. It appears the CEO is only concerned with free speech that’s not critical of him, however, as leading journalists have been banned for no apparent reason other than being critical of Musk and Twitter’s actions.

    According to The New York Times, Ryan Mac of The New York Times; Drew Harwell of The Washington Post; independent journalist Aaron Rupar; Donie O’Sullivan of CNN; Matt Binder of Mashable; independent journalist Tony Webster; Micah Lee of The Intercept; and political journalist Keith Olbermann all had their accounts suspended. No reason was given other than a notice on their Twitter profiles that says the accounts “violate the Twitter rules.”

    Exactly what rules these accounts violated, however, is up for debate. Some of them covered the @ElonJet account, which tracked Musk’s jet using publicly available information. Musk had previously said he would not ban the account before reversing course and banning it Wednesday. Other journalists merely wrote articles critical of some of Musk’s decisions.

    The bans were met with widespread criticism from other journalists, the tech industry, and politicians alike.

    The gall of @elonmusk to ban respectable journalists doing important work from his platform while parading as some sort of champion of free speech is, quite frankly, detestable,” tweeted Representative Yvette Clarke. “I’d ask if he feels any shame, but meaningful self-reflection may simply be beyond his capacity.”

    Similarly, Twitter users are reporting problems posting links to their Mastodon accounts, one of Twitter’s main competitors. When trying to post links to their Mastodon accounts, users are being met with a message stating the following:

    “Your Tweet couldn’t be sent because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful. Visit our Help Center to learn more.” 

    For someone who is a self-proclaimed champion of free speech, Musk is proving to be more of a foe than a champion, with his tenure as Twitter’s owner taking a decidedly draconian turn.

  • Mastodon Experiences Massive Growth After Musk/Twitter Deal

    Mastodon Experiences Massive Growth After Musk/Twitter Deal

    Decentralized, open source social network Mastodon has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition.

    Mastodon is a social media network popular in open source circles. The network is open source itself, as well as decentralized. This puts it more inline with what Jack Dorsey believes Twitter should have become.

    It appears many users may agree with Dorsey, as Mastodon has seen a tremendous uptick in users since Musk took over Twitter, passing 655,000 users.

    Users interested in making the move can learn more here.

  • Mastodon Tooth Found In Donation Box

    In The Image is an organization in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is devoted to the business of helping others. Clothes, shoes, and other daily living necessities have been donated in the past. However, an unusual find was recently discovered inside the store’s donation box.

    The tooth of a mastodon, or as children might know it a creature similar to that of the mammoth “Manny” from the hit movie Ice Age, was found inside the box. The tooth is expected to be anywhere from 12,000 to 15,000 years old.

    The Christian-oriented charity brought the tooth to the Grand Rapids Public Museum in order to allow children to enjoy the relic. The following video shows interviews from workers who were present when the unique donation was discovered.

    Jay Starkey is the director of the charity, In The Image, and he spoke with The Grand Rapids Press about the interest in finding such an object inside the donation box. “I’d love to find out where this was from and the history behind it,” he said before adding, “that was probably the weirdest thing.”

    Jay Starkey was not alone in being caught off-guard by the once-in-a-lifetime find. Tim Priest, who is the collections manager for the charity, shared his views on the fascinating find.

    “This is kind of an oddball way for something to come in,” Tim Priest said.

    Other less-than-typical finds, which the charity has received include: an urn with someone’s ashes still kept tightly inside, unspecified drugs, and a $5,000 painting granted as a donation.

    Even though finding a mastodon’s tooth was unexpected, the mammals actually roamed Michigan until becoming extinct roughly 10,000 years ago. As extinct relatives of present-day elephants, mastodons were similar in body structure with a large trunk and tusks; however, a full-size adult mastodon could weigh as much as 10 tons. There are still modern-day efforts to research and excavate fossils of mastodons.

    The following video gives an overview of mastodons.

    [Image Via In The Image‘s Facebook]