Easy to Set Up a Mastodon Account to Mirror Your Twitter Account

I noted yesterday that we had set up a Mastodon account (@[e-mail]), but I also wanted to mention that it was pretty easy:

[1.] I found an "instance," which is to say a place that would host us, and which had moderation rules that we could deal with. For us, it was liberdon.com, "a Mastodon instance for libertarians, ancaps, anarchists, voluntaryists, agorists, etc to sound off without fear of reprisal from jack or zuck." I'm not a libertarian, but I'm somewhat libertarianish and generally libertarian-friendly, so I felt comfortable with using their services and thought they'd feel comfortable with hosting me.

I'm sure there are plenty of users there with whom I'd disagree on many things, but that's likely true in one way or another of most other such hosts, and for that matter of Twitter and Facebook; and I do agree with them about being minimalist as to server-based moderation rules. There are probably lots of instances you can find that are similarly comfortable for you.

[2.] I then set up an account at the host I chose, which was quite easy. The one complication was that it required an e-mail address that wasn't on @gmail.com, @outlook.com, @hotmail.com, or @law.ucla.edu, apparently because it had run into spam problems with those domains. (Not sure how @law.ucla.edu ended up on that list, but there it is.) No problem: I had a @yahoo.com e-mail account that I used (or I could have just set one up for that).

UPDATE: I've heard from two sources that there were problems setting up the Mastodon account from the mobile app. I set it up from my computer rather than my phone, so maybe that's what made it extra smooth for me.

[3.] I then went to moa.party while signed on to my Twitter account and my Mastodon account; I clicked on a few places (which were self-explanatory), and now my Tweets end up on my Mastodon account, and vice versa.

This works particularly well for me because we auto-feed our blog, via its RSS feed, to Twitter, so now all post titles and post links also ended up posted on Mastodon as well.

[* * *]

As it happens, we currently have over 23,000 Twitter followers, and under 100 Mastodon followers; but we've only been on Mastodon for one day, and we're glad to have any extra readers that we can get—especially since setting up was so simple. And while there might be who-knows-what flareups with various Mastodon sites (whether our host site or otherwise) trying to block us in the future, if they disapprove of our content (just as there might be with Facebook or Twitter), for now it seems to me like a worthwhile experiment for us. Perhaps it might be for you as well.

UPDATE: I updated paragraph 1 to make clearer what I think it's important for the host and me to agree about, and what it's not.

Comments

[SimonP]

You know, if you want to find a place online where you can freely post the word, "nigger," and engage in casual transphobia on a fairly consistent basis, and you feel that you've found that in liberdon - I mean, great, by all means, have at it.

I do, however, question the judgment of someone who openly advertises that they chose a platform custom-designed as a refuge for white supremacists, insurrectionists, and misinformation peddlers - while saying, in essence, "We feel like we'll be welcome here."

Maybe you don't realize the extent to which you're telling on yourself, Eugene.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

If you see "libertarians, ancaps, anarchists, voluntaryists, agorists, etc" and read it as "white supremacists, insurrectionists, and misinformation peddlers", you probably ought to find some place safer than Volokh Conspiracy.

[SimonP]

And if you read a statement of purpose that includes whingeing like, "... to sound off without fear of reprisal from jack or zuck. It was created in the wake of the Great Twitter Cullings of 2018, ..." without recognizing it as hyperbolic and tied to efforts to limit right-wing extremism online, or particularly caring, then... well, I guess you're in the right commentariat.

I don't have any problem with those groups of people, and I wouldn't describe them as "white supremacist" by definition (well, without delving into the CRT of it all). But I do, however, recognize that the statement Eugene conveyed to us is a very clear virtue signal to a part of the market that believes Twitter, Facebook, et al., have been targeting "conservative" speech. And I think it's utterly bizarre that a law professor would share that virtue signaling as though it's not the code for right-wing extremists that it is.

[Eugene Volokh]

I appreciate your point, and I didn't mean to either endorse or oppose that part of the statement; I've revised the first point just to quote the category list -- which is the important part, since I wouldn't have wanted to impose myself on a site that described itself as being for a group of people that clearly didn't include me, whether cat lovers or liberal Democrats or what have you.

[Brett Bellmore]

"And I think it’s utterly bizarre that a law professor would share that virtue signaling as though it’s not the code for right-wing extremists that it is."

Strikes me more as 'virtue signaling" for people who don't want to be censored by left-wing extremists.

This will, of course include right-wing extremists, but would hardly be limited to them. Regardless of the fiction that the left only censors "extremists".

[Eugene Volokh]

SimonP: My view about the word "nigger" seems to be the same as yours, as revealed in your comment -- I think that mentioning it in discusses matters that involve the word is quite proper, and I don't like to expurgate it or replace it with a euphemism, though I of course don't actually use it as an insult.

As to whom liberdon was or wasn't designed for, it doesn't much matter to me. What's important to me is that it leaves me free to post what I want to post. If platforms designed by supposedly more enlightened people require me to commit to avoiding "ableism," for instance, or "transphobia" (would that mean that I can't post items that suggest that transgender athletes shouldn't be on women's sports teams?), or even "racism" (what does that term mean for speech in an age in which people view it as encompassing "structural racism"?), I'd rather avoid them.

[SimonP]

Again, Eugene, I'm not trying to paint you as guilty by your voluntary association with this service provider. I would never have known, or cared, if you had signed up with them because you thought they'd give you an easier time on content, and let their silly statement of purpose go unmentioned.

Where I question your judgment is in your decision to share their statement of purpose with your broader readership. I would think that someone who's up to date with current online events would understand what liberdon is trying to say with their statement, and who they're trying to solicit with it. That might not stop you from signing up - and I'm not saying it should - but I would not advertise that you think it'll be suitable for your purposes because it is a platform designed - as I said - to be a refuge for the most reprehensible and harmful speech we can currently imagine.

[M L]

(white supremacist)

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

I would think that someone who’s up to date with current online events would understand what liberdon is trying to say with their statement, and who they’re trying to solicit with it.

Your paranoia is astounding. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a pipe is not a pipe.

Do you apply the same paranoia to the left wing?

[SimonP]

I'm not "paranoid." Just informed.

And yes, I apply the same scrutiny/critical thinking to comparable left-wing value statements. There's no one on the left attempting a legal coup, and no one (so far as I'm aware) advertising their services specifically to left-wing extremists, but if you want to get into the obnoxious and hypocritical virtue signaling of the "liberal elite" that your ilk commonly complain about, I can go on all day.

[gormadoc]

Liberdon started in 2018. Twitter bans for Qanon started after that. "Insurrectionists" weren't even a thing yet. A bunch of anticop accounts were banned alongside a few related ancap accounts, and that's more what precipitated Liberdon.

[Jonathan Affleck]

I recommend Protonmail. While it is not yet as full-featured as Gmail, it's getting there, an it's more secure.