A little help with migrating to the Fediverse as a lewd content creator

If you’re a lewd content creator and looking to establish a presence on federated social media in response to algorithmic marginalisation on Twitter and elsewhere, welcome!

I’ve written this as a brief introduction to federated social media for people who produce and post lewd content, and as a brief introduction to some cultural quirks which are likely to differ from wherever you’re coming from.

Choosing an instance

Federated social media is divided up into instances, which are effectively websites which will host you and serve as your “home” on the network.

There are many instances to choose from, and they range from explicitly general purpose to predominantly hosting people with niche posting habits.

If you’re posting lewd content, I’d recommend that you join a small-to-medium sized instance dedicated to lewd content in general, or the specific type of lewd content you’re likely to post. Be aware that some instances won’t allow lewd content, so make sure to check their rules before signing up.

Here are some examples of instances which might suit your fancy:

Can I switch instances later?

There are many, many more instances to choose from – and if you later decide you’d rather be somewhere else, you can migrate your account.

The migration process will transfer your followers from your old account into your new account – but be aware that you can’t currently migrate your posts with Mastodon, or with most software being run by Fediverse instances.

Posting etiquette

Federated social media is often more etiquette heavy than mainstream social media platforms, and this is largely a consequence of these communities having developed with the influence of and to accommodate folks who were marginalised elsewhere.

These are safe spaces for many people, so please try to follow etiquette where you can.

Content warnings

Most federated social media platforms have the ability to mark up posts and media as sensitive and include a content warning.

Unlike on other social media platforms, this won’t negatively affect your post. Being cautious and descriptive about your content warnings can actually help your posting spread more widely because people are often happier to boost posts which are honest about what they contain than those which aren’t.

Here are some examples of content warnings I’ve used on my posts:

You don’t have to follow this pattern, but I find it helpful to have examples.

To apply a content warning to the whole post on Mastodon, click the “CW” button under the posting interface. To apply a content warning to an embedded image only, check the “Mark image as sensitive” box which appears after attaching an image.

Alternative text

Folks here are more likely to boost posts if any contained images have alt text for sight impaired users.

If the image contains text, it’s best to just transcribe the text.

If the image is a photograph, it’s best to describe briefly what the photograph contains. Emotive language isn’t necessary, but people will appreciate it.

To apply alt text, click the “Edit” button which appears on attached images.

Being human

Federated social media tends to have more of a homely feel to it than some of its more mainstream contemporaries. Feel free to post outside of your brand and reply in earnest to other posts.

Being discovered

People on federated social media are often quick to tell you that being discovered ought not to be the objective, but I won’t do that.

Reach is important to many of us – some of us for our livelihoods, others for a sense of being recognised as part of the community.

On most federated social media platforms, everything is displayed chronologically. There are no algorithms to boost or bury your posts based on their content or momentum, so don’t worry about self-censorship or aiming to encourage certain types of interaction above all else.

There’s a strong boosting culture on federated social media, and that’s how most post and user discovery happens. Boost other people’s stuff, and quite often they’ll boost yours in turn. Consider including some indication that you’re happy for your posts to be boosted in your bio, because folks can be cautious about boosting sensitive content without some explicit indication of consent.

There are hashtags which can be observed and followed, but personally I haven’t found them to be especially useful. If you do choose to use them, I would suggest placing them at the end of your post – that way, some instances will file away the tags neatly and help keep people’s focus on your actual post.

The one hashtag which I would strongly recommend that you use is #introduction. You might net some early followers by putting together an introductory post describing in brief who you are and what you intend to post, including that hashtag at the end.

There are also “live feeds”, and this is where being on a smaller and purposefully selected instance can help. There are two such feeds available on most instances:

If you’re wanting more of your followers to see a certain post, it’s generally not considered bad form to boost your own stuff. I’ll often unboost / reboost posts that I’m particularly proud of to get more eyes on them.

Usability

Federated social media can still be a little rough around the edges. Here are some tips for resolving common issues that people have.

Sensitive content

If you’re intending to use your account predominantly to follow people posting lewd or sensitive content, then you’re likely to be expanding a lot of content warnings by default.

If your instance is running Mastodon, you can tell it to auto-expand sensitive posts by going to Preferences and checking “Always expand posts marked with content warnings”. You can also show sensitive media by default by checking “Always show media” in the “Media display” section.

Federated social media on mobile

Mastodon’s official mobile app is, unfortunately, not great. Fortunately, there are alternatives available.

Personally, I have an Android phone and use Tusky. I’ve heard from friends using iOS that Toot and Ivory are nice.

Alternative interfaces for desktop

Some people find the Mastodon front-end to be a little lifeless and cold. If you’re looking for something which feels a little more like Twitter, you can log into your account on any instance using an alternative front-end like Elk.

Warnings / things to be aware of

Privacy controls on federated social media do not prevent the people running your instance from seeing that information if they choose to go digging. They also won’t prevent hackers and other malicious individuals from seeing the content if they compromise the server.

This isn’t specific to federated social media, but there’ll likely be fewer institutional and practical barriers to accessing this information than on larger and more corporate platforms.

Use the privacy and direct messaging features on federated social media as a convenient way to target posts to an audience, not as an assurance of privacy.

If you’d like to discuss sensitive topics, I’d encourage you to open an account on an encrypted messaging platform like Matrix / Element and list your handle for that on your profile.

Being a good Fediverse citizen / helping out

Federated social media sites tend to be operated by individuals, not corporations. They also tend not to show adverts, require subscription fees, or sell user data. As a result, the people running the site will often be paying out of pocket to keep it going.

Most instances will offer a way to donate, and if you have spare cash it’s a great way to keep federated social media free from the annoyances and prudish censorship of the corporate world.

In addition, and although it should go without saying, please don’t post anything illegal on the platform. If you’re younger than 18 / the age of majority in your country (whichever is higher), please don’t sign up to or interact with instances which are focused on lewd content. People running these sites are doing what they can to keep these spaces / their users / themselves safe, and don’t need for their job to be made harder.

Conclusions!

That’s all, thanks for reading! I understand that I’ve stretched the definition of brief a bit here, but I hope you’ve found it to be useful reading.

Take care!

Link to my original post on kinky.business

License: CC BY-SA 4.0