Will more lawyers join Mastodon?
Legal Twitterati trials alternative social media platform in the wake of Musk takeover
Lawyers and legal commentators are hedging their bets on the future of Twitter by creating profiles on the social media platform Mastodon.
First launched in 2016, Mastodon is a social networking site that doesn’t run ads and is free to use.
Although it outwardly appears similar to Twitter, the site is run by a variety of different servers with differing codes of conduct, privacy policies and so on. Users must select a server (or apply to join a server in certain cases), but can interact with others on the site regardless of the server they have selected. Those who run the servers have the final say in moderating posts.
The move follows billionaire Elon Musk’s eye-catching changes to Twitter including plans to make users pay £7 per month to receive blue tick verification.
Amongst the legal Twitterati to set up Mastodon accounts are the Secret Barrister, David Allen Green, and Adam Wagner. Green has amassed over 13,000 followers on the platform after joining a several days ago, whilst Wagner, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers has over a thousand and the Secret Barrister over 5,000.
But it appears not everyone is on board just yet…
How long before Mastodon is taken over by Elon Tusk?
— David KC (@DavidMuttering) November 6, 2022
how long are we going to keep pretending ‘mastodon’ doesn’t sound a bit like a rude word or are you all grown ups or something
— Joanna Hardy-Susskind (@Joanna__Hardy) November 6, 2022
Some users have already encountered difficulties with CrimeLine, an account run by barrister Andrew Keogh, claiming their profile had been suspended after they posted “one case report and and a link to the latest case feed”.
They explained on Twitter: “I appealed the suspension and that appeal was refused. There is no further appeal mechanism. I am banished.”
Will you be joining Mastodon?
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9 Comments
Jason
I did back in 2017 after some other furore created after Twitter changed something or other back then. There was even a legal specific instance spun up by someone (long since disappeared). I still have my account for the mastodon.cloud instance. Have I used it recently? No not really, after an initial buzz of something new I, like most others on there in 2017 drifted back to Twitter as that’s where most people and conversations stayed.
I suspect this time round it’ll be much the same. Feel free to “Toot” me at @planty@mastodon.cloud if you disagree.
Kimberly
I prefer Pterodactyl!
Billy
Triceratops!
Trini
Sabre-toof Tigah!!!!!!
Anonymous
Dragonzord
David Allen Green
Hello there
On Mastodon I will be posting from time to time lists of UK lawyers and legal commentators who are on there, and these posts may be useful if any of you join.
It is a different place than Twitter – and has its own lore and rules. It also is de-centralised – a network of servers but with a common protocol – and so if you encounter difficulties with one server, try another.
Horse, courses – but certain dialogue and exchanges better at Mastodon than on Twitter.
Privacy boon
But aren’t these servers horrendous for privacy – some random guy can literally read all your private messages!
David Allen Green
In essence, the same as Twitter – where Twitter admins can read your unencrypted DMs.
It is just a post with restrictions on who will see it – literally a Direct(ed) Message.
If you want absolute privacy, use Signal.
Anonymous
Is anybody on @law.builders mastodon instance?
Comments are closed.