If contemporary social media (2008-2022) has taught us anything, it’s that:
- Functional social media is vital to day-to-day life
- Algorithms in service of ad spend ROI care little for real conversations
As of December 2022, something of a revolt is happening: Twitter has been taken private, and long-standing policies are being uprooted in realtime. Users are defecting from the service in waves. There’s a sense that Twitter itself might finally implode under the weight of mismanagement. Regardless, these events have once again spurred action towards the decentralization of social media, and this instance (mastodon.africa) is one of many answers to that call.
The vision:
Social media that puts users first - not algorithms or advertisers.
The effort towards this is being conducted on a global scale, and has been underway since the early-2000’s: OpenMicroBlogging, OStatus, and now the ActivityPub protocols have been developed to support the evolving needs of the public. Today, open-source projects like Mastodon provide a simple way to get started with a very modern experience. Building on the work of hundreds of volunteers, we’re working towards our vision by providing this service.
The mission:
Provide a secure, stable Mastodon instance governed by the rules and regulations of The Republic of South Africa
A crucial acknowledgement to make: As of 2022, the “wild west” days of social media are over. The digital world has fully merged with the real world - trolls can visit real-world harm by doxxing individuals, special interest groups can build narratives, algorithms can swing elections and incite unrest on a massive scale. Along with the growth of the technology and its impact, there has been corresponding (if lagging) growth in the regulations aimed at preventing undue harm.
On the legal front, this instance of Mastodon will run primarily according to the rules of South Africa. As of 19 December 2022, this instance seeks compliance with:
- Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (link)
- Films and Publications Amendment Act 11 of 2019 (link)
- Cybercrimes Act 19 of 2020 (link)
- ... and other laws, declarations or amendments that cover online speech
On the technical front, this instance will run according to industry standard effective practices, such as:
- Secured access to all environments
- Regular backups and off-site replication of crucial data
- Keeping all software in the stack up to date for security
- Always having at least 2 administrators able to effect changes
- Scaling up infrastructure in line with demand growth
By doing so, our hope is to provide a stable, reliable service for users in South Africa (and beyond!).
Last Updated: 19 December 2022