How to get started on Infosec Mastodon

In case you haven’t heard, Elon Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion and it’s been a bit chaotic since. It’s only been 8 days since that takeover, and Musk has already gutted the staff, with media reports saying about half of the 7,500 employees have been given notice.

This takeover has left many in the infosec/cybersecurity field up in arms, with many wanting to protest the changes, such as Musk’s pay-for-play verification plans.

And so the natural question amongst the infosec/cybersecurity community on Twitter is: do we stay or do we go?

And if we leave, where do we go?

While many are willing to weather the storm on Twitter—after all it is providing a reach not matched by many other social networks—others are willing to jump, or at least simultaneously explore Mastodon as a new stomping ground.

You would not be alone: Mastodon—which has been in existence for six years—gained 70,000 new users the day Musk took over Twitter alone. It has over 655,000 users as of this writing across all servers.

The most prominent server is mastodon.social, with over 130,000 users as of this writing.

What is Mastodon?

First of all, don’t type mastodon.com in your browser because you’ll find yourself exploring mulching equipment, not a social media platform.

I made that first mistake.

Second, understand that Mastodon is an open-source decentralized social media platform. What does that mean, exactly? It means that you can find individual Mastodon communities—think like a Slack or Reddit community —and join.

Since it’s decentralized, each Mastodon server is a completely independent entity, able to interoperate with others to form one global social network.

This allows you to essentially join communities of interest to you, and stay “on topic.” It also means you will abide by that community’s guidelines, such as content discussions, sharing of content, and so forth.

Simply choose a server from the curated list we provide on https://t.co/7b5IkHSH6d – we try to make it so you can't make a wrong choice there. You can move your account from one server to another later, without losing any of your followers!

— Mastodon (@joinmastodon) October 27, 2022

How to get started on Mastodon

Mastodon, like Reddit or Twitter, can be accessed on a website or through the App Store for Apple iOS devices and Google Android devices.

Once you’re on the website, you can browse individual servers, or communities of interest, whether it’s about sports, education, or in this case, infosec.

individual Mastodon servers can also federate with other Mastodon servers, so just because you choose one server doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily “in a silo” from others.

In this case, I chose to join infosec.exchange, which is what the Twitter infosec community kept touting as the Mastodon server of choice.

You can see my individual profile on infosec.exchange, and register for an account to join the server immediately.

While you don’t need to use the web browser to interact with the community, I find it preferable over mobile as it highly resembles TweetDeck’s old UI.

If the overall look and feel of Mastodon reminds you a lot of Twitter, that’s no accident. Mastodon was created back in 2016 by Eugen Rochko, a disillusioned user of Twitter.

Overall, I am finding the infosec.exchange Mastodon community to be everything I liked about keeping up with cybersecurity news and happenings on Twitter, without all the Twitter toxicity and doomscrolling we’ve come to despise.

Is Mastodon the future social platform of choice for infosec?

The embrace of APIs, development and decentralized nature keep Mastodon a very appealing choice for the infosec and cybersecurity community to embrace. It will always be free, can’t be bought by billionaires, and appears to be reaching a critical mass to keep users engaged and not an echo chamber.

It’s to be determined if it will have long-term viability, but if Twitter continues to alienate its most loyal users, it will only encourage more people to head to Mastodon.

Reddit is a highly likely alternative for users to leave for, but not everyone wants the user experience Reddit offers, either. Reddit has its own problems, like any social platform, and doesn’t offer the “quick bite” of tech opinion, news, and social interaction Twitter or Mastodon does.

In the end, those looking for a Twitter clone without the chaos and toxicity will be happy with Mastodon.

See you on the Fediverse.