Introduction to Mastodon (June 12th, 2018 Regular MUG Meeting)

We meet at 6:30pm on the second Tuesday of each month at the Farmington Community Library.

Topics Include:

Mastodon and the State of the Federated Web

Mastodon is a decentralized and federated social networking platform made up of multiple unique servers communicating over a shared protocol (ActivityPub). This allows each Mastodon server to be run as it's own community. Rather than one large monolithic server dedicated to general interests and discussion there are servers for many different interests and tastes. But what makes this system unique as any Mastodon user can subscribe and follow any other user on another instance. And with ActivityPub other systems that aren't Mastodon-based can also communicate with Mastodon instances and vice versa.

Craig Maloney will discuss a brief history of Mastodon and the history of federated social media (Mastodon wasn't the first in this space). We'll cover the basics of Mastodon and how to use it. We'll also cover some third-party applications that can be used with Mastodon. Then we'll take an introductory look at ActivityPub, the protocol that connects up Mastodon instances and the larger federated web.

Facebook and Twitter have been in the news for behaving badly with user data and privacy. With Mastodon and the larger federated web we have an opportunity to communicate without leaking our data. If you care at all about the future of social media you won't want to miss this look at a promising platform and protocol.

Craig Maloney has been interested in computers ever since he read about them in the World Book Encyclopedia. He is a board member of the Michigan!/usr/group and spends his days programming in Python. He is currently writing about himself in the third person and doesn't think that's weird at all. Learn more at http://decafbad.net.

Plus we'll have our regular features: Jobs Looking for People, People Looking for Jobs, and much more! We'll also be meeting for dinner at the Buddy's Pizza in Novi (44225 W 12 Mile Road, Novi, MI 48377) after the meeting.