MASTODON.

• Author: Ciaramella, C.J.

Elon Musk's shambolic takeover may not have been great for Twitter, but it was fantastic for Mastodon, a social media platform that saw usership skyrocket in response.

Mastodon is not a single site. Instead, it's a collection of "federated" independent servers, each centered around a topic: anarchism, food, etc. In practice it's like a mix of Reddit and Twitter, but less centralized. Decentralization is in fact Mastodon's big selling point: You don't have to worry about a San Francisco tech executive monkeying with your server.

I considered joining a metal or gaming server, but I knew where I belonged and what I deserved, so I joined one for reporters. It's...