Shifting your research from X to Mastodon? Here’s what you need to know

First published on (and last modified on ) about written work, fediverse, mastodon, research, ethics with rob gehl version b668096

tl;dr

Together with Rob Gehl I wrote an opinion piece for academic journal Patterns. It addresses the fact that while it might seem that Mastodon is very similar to Twitter (currently known as X), there are crucial differences between the two. Researchers who want to shift their research programs from one platform to the other, should consider those differences. The piece explores those differences and ultimately argues that research should be with the fediverse, not on it.

Read the full piece online https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2023.100914 or as a PDF(mirror).

The article builds on discussions during the Mastodon Research Tools symposium at Warwick University and What does toot:indexable mean for academic research on the fediverse?.