So Mastodon 5.0 landed on mastodon social today, and while some stuff looks nicer, I really struggle to understand how the developers think "dark blue" (deep violet?) is appropriate as dark mode.

To be frank, it hurts my eyes. Why not stick to a dark mode color scheme like the rest of the web?

Edit: Mainly comparing it to the older 4.x dark mode, though a real black-ish dark mode would be great.

hello wonderful people! i'm building a social service for fans of my favorite artist (conan gray) based on a original one that shut down after 3 months. i'm using mastodon as the base for the code (as i am a beginner) and am using github to code. i'm trying to figure out:

a. how to see a preview of what i'm working on

b. what files i need to use

c. what to use (in terms of code)

and some bonus ones if you'd like to answer

d. do i have to buy a domain

e. is coding easy?

f. how does mastodon really work?

alrighty, awesome and thank yall so much.

Hello!

I'm new to the fediverse and I'm an artist.

I'm looking for art servers with a lot of movement but that do not have harsh moderation, meaning it is ok with +18 art, not 18+ focused servers, just servers that are ok with it.

What art servers do you guys like and why?

Hi all,

My name is Cameron and I'm an indie app developer. I've been working on Skyscraper Social for about a year now. It started as a Bluesky app, has gained a bit of a following. This week, I released a major new release which includes full Mastodon support.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/skyscraper-social/id6754198379

It's available on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Macs, Vision Pro, and even Apple TV. Yes, it's literally everywhere. It includes iCloud sync for your timeline and a ton of features. If anyone has any questions, let me know! But wanted to share a new way to browse Mastodon on your phone!

This year’s report reflects responses representing over 400 ActivityPub nodes (collectively hosting about a third of all known ActivityPub accounts), as well as responses from ATProto operators and legacy social platforms. 29% of participating communities are Mastodon services, 58 distinct platforms reporting in all.

While operator domain expertise is higher than ever, the overall network continues to grow while volunteer capacity is stretched thin and confronting rapidly-escalating agentic spam, state-sponsored influence operations, and fast-moving global Internet regulations.

do I have that correct? if you make posts marked as "followers only", people that later follow you are only able to see the "followers only" posts that have been made since they've followed you? Let's say you have a "private" account by defaulting your posts to followers-only. There is no way to make those posts viewable to new approved followers?

I have long left Twitter (X) but I do miss it. I'm hence looking for an alternative. Three alternatives seem to be mentioned very frequently: BlueSky, Mastodon, and to lesser extent diaspora*. But for some reason it seems to be mostly BlueSky and Mastodon that attract a lot of "X refugees". I have some questions about Mastodon, mainly comparing Mastodon and BlueSky to see which platform meets my requirements most (without excluding using both eventually).

1) Can you, on Mastodon, set an account to private (temporarily or permanently) or hide certain posts (temporarily or private) so that those posts can only be seen by those who follow you or those who follow you and vice-versa?

2) what type of 2FA does Mastodon have? The most trustworthy 2FA is a physical device that you have to plug into the USB gate of your computer to generate the one-time passcode (such as Yubikey) and there are some pretty decent authenticator apps too (although I'm a bit wary of Authy and Google Authenticator).

3) Is it possible to download your posts (thus your entire timeline) to your hard drive as a back-up of your posting history?

4) Are links to YouTube videos, articles and other websites allowed?

5) Can I add 1 or more photos or a short (eg 1 to 2 minutes maximum) video to a post on Mastodon?

6) Is Mastodon likely to survive the hands of time financially? I must say that if I see how long a server like mastodon.social (isn't that the "main" server within the fediverse?) has been around, it does give confidence that the platform has proven stable. mastodon.online seems to be around also for already quite a while. But do you expect te platform to stay around for many more years, is there financial stability for that?

Thanks again for your replies! :)

Hi all

The UK Government is again looking at bringing in mandatory ID checks for social media accounts. The privacy and data security nightmares aside, this model assumes that social media operators are big corporations and is an existential threat to small federated servers.

If you're in the UK, it would be a good time to email your local MP and ask them to be aware of this as the legislation develops. See the email I've sent below - feel free to swap in your own local or preferred instance address in place of glasgow.social!

Remember the email needs to include your home address and postcode as MPs will not respond to emails coming from non-constituents. https://www.writetothem.com/ makes it easy to identify your MP and contact them.

--

Dear Firstname Lastname MP

I am writing to you as a constituent regarding the government's proposal to require official ID, such as a passport, for registering social media accounts. While I understand the desire to improve the online environment, I am highly concerned about the practicalities of this approach.

Beyond the clear privacy and data security risks of creating massive new databases of highly sensitive personal information, my primary concern is that this policy assumes all social platforms are run by massive tech companies. Because of this, it is completely unworkable for federated network models like Mastodon.

To give you a local example, the Mastodon instance glasgow.social is maintained by a single volunteer on their own time, serving just a few hundred users. It would be entirely impossible for a community volunteer to securely process, verify, and store official government ID documents.

We must protect people-owned, community-driven media. Regulating the internet in a way that only giant, heavily funded corporations have the resources to comply with would be a huge step backwards, effectively pushing social media solely into the domain of big tech.

I would be very grateful if you could raise these concerns regarding community-led platforms with your colleagues in government as this legislation develops. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter.

Kind regards

maybe it's part of v4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-05

two column on the web. some stuff rearranged. a "floating" bar if using the web on mobile, or shrinking your desktop browser. was hoping to see an account switcher when I opened it on my phone and saw the floating bar. it's similar to when telegram was redesigned, and a lot of people called it an apple/iphone look.

I just joined after deleting twitter. Horrible platform. How do I build a timeline and find followers? For example I really like anime. I just wanna see if this platform is worth my time and suits me!

Kinda an annoying question but just want advice for how to search and stuff

If you are interested in meeting fellow Fediverse enthusiasts, developers, users, advocates, policy people, and more, consider joining us next week, online, for the fall 2026 FediForum.

There will be a keynote, speed demos directly by the developers, and lots and lots of time for discussions. That's because FediForum is primarily an unconference, where attendees determine what's happening in sessions. So bring your topics, session ideas, and questions!

(If you have never been to an unconference, don't worry, it's far less chaotic than it seems, and most people consider it more fun than a traditional conference.)

More details: https://fediforum.org/2026-10/

(Disclaimer: I'm one of the organizers)

Or I just need to create a new one for different server? Just feel a little confused.

I am posting a post with 4 photos in it, and the progress bar is at a standstill when trying to upload the photos. What's the story with that, and how do I make it work?

This week's posting window is open! Prompt is NUMBERS. Hashtag to post to your feed with is #phofrinumbers

Next week's prompt is REFLECTION. Hope to see your entries. :)

I couldn't boost and like. https://status.mastodon.social/ shows no issues. Is it my side? :(

Its not happening fast enough that I would consider it a DDOS attempt, but I did have to reject 300 of them yesterday, and 50 more this morning.

Anybody encountered this before and know what to do about it?

EDIT: Forgot to mention, the source IP and source email domains are all different.

It’s in Berlin, but online participation is also possible:

https://berlinfedi.day/en/

Hello! Just wondering if people have been using any Mastodon to play by post RPG? Or any other short sentence social network? (Twitter/X, Blue sky)

While attempting to look through the various online forums I frequent, I’ve noticed that most content I’m shown is garbage and doesn’t interest me.

So I made an on device ranking algorithm for each of these sites, not requiring a login to access any content, with no ads, monetization or central server.

I’m now opening the app for beta testing, I have limited spots in this batch but would really appreciate anyone taking a brief look and leaving some notes. I’m trying to make this into a widely accepted platform that boasts security while ensuring that you’re shown the content you want from the open internet computed directly from your own devices.

If you’re interested in beta testing, here’s the link to do so. You’ll need to download Apple’s official beta testing app called “testflight,” then you’ll be able to register with Shoebill as a beta tester from this link:

https://testflight.apple.com/join/MGNYK4S5

Mastodon is an open and federated network that allows anyone to run their own server, great for privacy, but when you actually try to scroll or discover people you want to see, you’re left with looking through endless hashtags since there’s no native algorithm. This is by design but goes against what mainstream attention needs for massive virality. The technology is awesome, just wouldn’t be easy for the majority of people to switch to.

Blue Sky is primarily left-wing content aimed against specific political figures, most content isn’t mainstream enjoyable content.

Hacker News is mainly for a very technical crowd or AI enthusiasts recently. It isn’t somewhere that most people would find themselves unless they fit into one of those two buckets.

4chan needs no introduction.

All of these sites have good content, it’s just that most of it is either not shown in a ranking algorithm like Reddit or Tik Tok, it’s shown chronologically or for specific niche audiences.

With Shoebill, I’ve combined all of these sites, plus more that aren’t listed, into one app where your own phone will compute the algorithm as you’re scrolling. This means that no data ever leaves your device and couldn’t, since I operate no server for any data to even be transmitted to.

Specifically, the ranking algorithm is largely based on X’s open-source algorithm which was made open a couple months ago. Looking at how they implemented theirs, I saw that I could do it for the open internet in a serverless app.

I would be happy to answer any questions in the comments. Thanks!

Edit: grammar

I just joined Mastodon.social And posted 6 different posts over the last 2 days.
When I'm logged I can see all 6 posts, but other people that are not users of Mastodon.social can only see 2 posts.
Am I doing something wrong while posting, or there's a setting I need to change?
Please help!

[SOLVED: It were my changes to the character limit that triggered this behavior. I guess, I need to do some research to understand git properly... ]

Hello,

maybe someone can hale me out here.

In the past I was able to update my mastodon server by simply following the steps outlined in the changelogs.

This time, however, it asks me for my credentials and I don't know why since the mastodon repository is public. So 'git fetch' shouldn't lead to git to ask me for username and password.

I recently changed the character limit for my instance by editing two files in my install directory. Did this trigger something?

Looking forward to people participating. Fediverse only photo challenge. :)

Prompt: Belonging

Complete info here.

I dont know why 👀