We’ve joined Insta, but don’t follow us There

We’ve all seen the pictures from Trump’s inauguration – Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram; stood in the front row. And of Musk giving a Nazi salute. The CEO of TikTok was not in those pictures, but he was also there. It seems like every corporate social media platform is already collaborating with a government that puts all of our queer siblings at risk.

But, on the other hand, so many of our queer siblings are on those platforms and we want them to see what we’re posting. So we can tell them about our events. And also about alternatives that are safer for them. We can’t reach them if we wall ourselves off.

Our compromise is that all of our posts to insta are going to direct readers to this website. And, although they won’t all go to the front page of this website, all of the insta posts will get copied over to everyone following @jaq on the fediverse.

The fedi-what?

Maybe you’ve heard of Mastodon or seen that something called Pixelfed is suddenly the number one in the app store. These are both part of the same non-corporate social media universe – the fediverse. You can join any part of it and follow friends on any other part. In this post, we’re going to discuss how to join Mastodon, which is one way to access social media that’s not under fascist control. You can use it to post pictures, videos and audio, but it’s often word-based and appeals to people who used to like Twitter.

Where to join

There are many good places to sign up, each of which has its own moderation policy. Ideally, members and friends of JAQ want to signup somewhere friendly to both queers and Jews.

One such place is lgbt.io. That instance is specifically queer and has a few Jewish users. One of the moderators is also a mod in JAQ.

Another instance is babka.social. The specifically Jewish and about 60% queer. Like many Jewish communities, many of the users and a majority of the mods are liberal Zionists.

There are many other good instances, however, because the moderation policies vary, do get a recommendation instead of joining one at random.

How to sign up

Via phone

Let’s say you want to sign up with lgbt.io. Use your phone’s web browser to connect. Then tap the Create account button on the top centre.

You need to supply a username, your email address and a password.

And you need to say why you want an account. This is to prevent spam. You can just say that you’re queer or an ally and want to give Mastodon a try. Then click the request button.

You’ll need to verify your email address. Then a moderator will look at your request. This might take a few minutes or a day or two. The moderators are volunteers.

After you get approved, you can use Mastodon via a web browser, or you may prefer an app.

There are several apps, including an official one. Android users may prefer Tusky.

After you install any app, it will want to know what “instance” you signed up with. For people who signed up with lgbt.io, that’s their instance. Or your instance might be babka.social. Or mastodon.art. Or wherever you signed up.
This example shows what starting out with Tusky looks like.
After that, you’ll need your email address and password.

Via a computer

Most computer-users access Mastodon via the web interface. When you first connect to where you want to sign up, the create account button is in the right column.

After that, the steps are the same as for people signing up via phone.

If you signed up via phone, you can connect to your account via your computer and vice versa.

Going forward

Our next post will talk about how to sign up for Pixelfed, which is image-lead and will appeal to people who like Insta.

You can have both kinds of account if you want, but you don’t need both. Pixelfed users can follow posts from Mastodon users and vice versa. This is what makes it the “federated universe” (aka, the fediverse) – because everyone can follow and interact across platforms.

The multitude of instances and platforms is also what makes it immune to oligarch capture. The corporate-owned network Bluesky is (kind of) fine right now, but it could be taken over by a new fascist owner tomorrow. By contrast, the fediverse is jointly owned by hundreds of independent operators. Even if Elon Musk bought lgbt.io, he wouldn’t own babka.social or mastodon.art.

Who to follow?

Obviously, follow us: @jaq. And then see if you can find this post. Who has replied to it saying they’re friends of JAQ? Perhaps you might follow them and also leave your own reply.

Next Steps

There are a lot of how-to guides, such as this short one from Mastodon, or this longer unofficial one.

Also, please do tell your friends on insta where to find us. And then tell them where to find you on the fediverse.

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#mazeldon