Mastodon for charities
Are you part of a charity, social enterprise, community business, co-op, independent business or small organisation wondering what on earth you should be doing about Twitter and Mastodon?
Are you thinking ‘I don’t know where to start and I haven’t even got time to think about this and it sounds really technical and so I’m scared of what will happen but I can’t fix it oh no?’
You are categorically not alone.
We can’t promise to have all of the answers - there are no realistic straight answers right now - but we’ve done some research and here are our initial thoughts.
First up, we don’t think that there is any need to leave Twitter for Mastodon right now. Elon Musk hasn’t bought Twitter to sink it.
It MIGHT be a good idea to set up an account on Mastodon BUT there are some issues about naming conventions that mean this might - if you are at risk of impersonation - create more work. We’ll do our best to explain here.
When you join Mastodon, you sign up via a particular server. Don’t worry too much about that word for now. It doesn’t mean you need to do anything technical as a user.
Unlike Twitter, which is one company, one entity, with one set of rules, Mastodon is a bit more like a big swimming pool with a load of servers using the same underlying tech, that we are going to think of as flamingo floats for now. You can join any float you like, and they are all swimming in the same water, you can talk to anyone on the floats on the other side of the pool - but each float has different rules. Some floats are set up to be spaces specifically for individual groups. So, Mastodon.green has an eco theme, ravenation.club is for people who like electronic music. These servers - or flamingo floats to stretch the analogy - have rules set and enforced by their moderators. So, this means behaviour on one server might be ok and on another not ok. We won’t link to them but there are servers for those with extreme political views for example where language and behaviour is allowed that would not be on other servers.
Now - what we think this means is that you could set up mycharity.mastodon.social - but someone else could set up mycharity.mastodon.green and any other number of variants of mycharity,anyoldsserver - and it’s on you to report that to the moderators of each server. This article says that there is no official verification process for Mastodon and a webinar we link to below explains a bit more about a process of using links - but for us, this feels like a potential can of worms for a small organisation and yo might feel like a ‘we are not on Mastodon yet’ statement is the way to go for now.
There really is no way of saying, right now, what will happen. There is a lot that's really good about Mastodon. Ethically and morally, we think it is a good thing BUT it is more complicated in structure, and relies heavily on individual moderators, most of whom are volunteers, which could means there are limits to where it can go. Our hunch is that, in this world that we live in, the morally good, slightly clunky thing will lose out against the capitalist slick thing. We’d love to be proved wrong and it might be that we end up in an Android (Open Source) v Apple (tightly controlled) situation with devotees on both sides - but no-one knows right now.
We think that the best things you can do now are:
Keep on posting as you are
Make sure that you have alternative ways of keeping in touch with your audience, clients beneficiaries and service users
Review your website and social media platforms, your email newsletter, YouTube channel or Spotify or SoundCloud accounts. Are they all in working order, can you get into them and post there if you need to?
Consider setting up a Mastodon account and do some general reading, ask questions (ask us if you like - we’ll help if we can and will tell you if we can’t)
Watch this REALLY good webinar from the brilliant Open Rights Group about it here which answers some of the key questions about the different servers, how to secure your name and prevent impersonation (but even so, our understanding is that our comment above stands)
Read this great analysis and advice here from the gurus Charity Comms
And finally - don’t worry. This too shall pass and your charity or organisation needs your energy. Give us a shout if you’re worried and we’ll gladly help if we can.