Preventing Mastodon hegemony

2025-06-18T19:00:00.000Z

It seems that there are more people who know Mastodon than those who know the Fediverse. And there are many who are on Mastodon but do not realize that they are on the Fediverse. This is a problem, and it needs to be fixed.

I am not going to explain here why it is a problem. There is already a good explanation here. If you do not know Mastodon or the Fediverse, the Fediverse is a collection of many content-sharing platforms that can be interconnected ("federated"), and Mastodon is one of such platforms, though arguably the most popular one.

Here are some of the tips on how to prevent Mastodon hegemony.

Recommend people to use the Fediverse, not Mastodon

When you are inviting others to use the Fediverse, make sure that you make a brief introduction of the Fediverse, before going on with specific software.

Bad: "Let's use Mastodon!"

Better: "Join the Fediverse with me! I'm on Mastodon but there are other software that might suit you better. I recommend trying out a few of them and pick what you like most."

Do not invite people to register on mastodon.social or mastodon.online

On a federated network, it is best to avoid centralization.

Bad: "How to join the Fediverse?" -- "Just make an account on mastodon.social ."

Better: "How to join the Fediverse?" -- "Here is a list of instances I personally think to be good: A, B, C, D and E. You can randomly pick one."

Avoid marking your fediverse account simply as a Mastodon account

Instead of saying you have "a Mastodon account," it is better to say you have a Fediverse account, optionally indicating the platform.

Technically accurate, but can be improved: "My Mastodon account: @foo@mastodon.example.org"

Better: "My Fediverse account: @foo@mastodon.example.org (on Mastodon)"

However, never say you have "a Mastodon account" if it is not a Mastodon account. If you need to reach people who only know about Mastodon, say "it can be reached from Mastodon" instead.

Bad: "My Mastodon account: @foo@misskey.example.org"

Better: "My Fediverse account: @foo@misskey.example.org (on Misskey, can be reached from Mastodon and other software)"

Sometimes, things can be tricky, for example, because you are using a library to display the links, and the library only gives you the out-of-box ability to display "Mastodon" (either the text or the icon).

Thus, if you are the author of a library or a web application providing the functionality to display social media handles, avoid presenting users with the choice "Mastodon" without other Fediverse software. Or better still, you can present users with the choice "Fediverse."

Bad: "Type of link: ..., Mastodon, ..."

Better: "Type of link: ..., Mastodon, Pleroma, Misskey, Friendica, GoToSocial, ..."

Even better (and simpler): "Type of link: ..., Fediverse, ..."

Do not use services provided by parties that are hostile to non-Mastodon software

You might not realize, but there are a few Mastodon instance owners who are hostile to non-Mastodon software on the Fediverse, or who are "worried about the security" of non-Mastodon software that federates with them. They might then seek to defederate any non-Mastodon platform they see.

It is a misconception that non-Mastodon software are always "less secure" than Mastodon. There are many kinds of Fediverse software, and each of them have its own security level. Some may display more information to non-registered users than Mastodon, and some people might think it is "less secure." However, usually it is the kind of information that will be provided by Mastodon to another instance over federation anyway, so anyone can setup an instance and request the information from Mastodon, and the Mastodon instance will happily provide it to them. "Security" against good people only is not security at all.

Of course, defederating from non-Mastodon software does not in any way improve the security of their instance. First of all, there is no reason any instance will not pretend to be Mastodon while running something else. What is more, an instance can be running Mastodon (potentially a fork, but not necessarily so), which will make it look like just any Mastodon instance, but at the same time secretly doing bad things, for example, scraping user accounts from other instances to make local copies of them. Lastly, unless an instance enables federation by allow-list instead of deny-list, they can never make up a full list of instances of any particular software and blocks them on day one.

Among these parties, mastodon.art is one of the largest. It blocks really a lot of instances just because they are running software other than Mastodon, and marks them under the term "alt-fedi." I recommend that you not register accounts on mastodon.art, and not invite others to register there. If you have an account there, I recommend you to migrate to instances that are not hostile to non-Mastodon software.

Use other Fediverse software than Mastodon

The more other Fediverse software is used, the less Mastodon can be hegemonic.

As a user, you may want to use multiple different types of instances. If you self-host a Fediverse instance, consider platforms other than Mastodon. Many Fediverse platforms are much more customizible than Mastodon, and some are less resource-demanding than Mastodon, so it is likely that they will suit self-hosters' needs better.

Help fund other Fediverse software than Mastodon

You might not realize, but Mastodon receives much more funding than many other Fediverse software. On its Patreon alone, it receives $19,060 per month (as of 2025,6,18 (3)). They receive money on other donation platforms, in addition to any donation provided by companies, which is probably not included on these platforms. They also have multiple full-time employees to develop the software.

In comparison, many other Fediverse projects remain poorly funded, relying on mainly a few volunteers to contribute. If you can spare any little sum to donate, consider donating to these projects. Any little bit helps!