{"id":11771,"date":"2023-01-09T18:49:40","date_gmt":"2023-01-09T23:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/?p=11771"},"modified":"2023-01-09T18:49:40","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T23:49:40","slug":"my-own-little-elephant-self-hosting-mastodon-follow-along","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2023\/01\/09\/my-own-little-elephant-self-hosting-mastodon-follow-along\/","title":{"rendered":"My Own Little Elephant, self-hosting Mastodon &#8211; Follow Along"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:915,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/social.yesterweb.org\\\/explore&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20250821225254\\\/https:\\\/\\\/social.yesterweb.org\\\/explore&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-11-03 17:33:10&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-12-04 05:43:43&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-12-22 22:20:05&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-11 02:21:09&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-14 08:51:23&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-20 06:07:42&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-25 15:46:59&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-30 06:37:13&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-08 14:38:57&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-17 15:55:31&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-22 04:54:12&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-26 11:38:54&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-10 07:07:02&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-24 13:52:10&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-02 06:37:09&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-08 21:30:27&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-23 01:27:11&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-27 06:08:58&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-27 06:08:58&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:916,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/masto.adamchandler.me\\\/@AdamChandler#&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:917,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/masto.adamchandler.me\\\/@AdamChandler.rss&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20231101211405\\\/https:\\\/\\\/masto.adamchandler.me\\\/@AdamChandler.rss&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-11-03 17:33:16&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-12-04 05:49:28&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-16 01:25:55&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-11 11:55:31&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-17 15:55:29&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-10 07:06:56&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404}],&quot;broken&quot;:true,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-10 07:06:56&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>If you really care about your data, you should host it yourself. Despite all of the talk this week about folks liberating their blogging that used to take place on Twitter, everyone just jumped ship over to more servers owned by other people. It\u2019s something that was a little surprising. You\u2019d think that folks who felt burned when services shut down or changed direction wouldn\u2019t just go off and join another free service. Even some podcasters I followed admitted to having 6 Mastodon accounts and 4-5 of them had already shut down in 4 years since joining. Not a good look.<\/p>\n<p>If I\u2019m going to publish, I want to either publish to a box I own \/ control or pay someone to act as librarian. For example, Flickr is the place where all of my publicly accessible photos are hosted and that\u2019s going on almost 20 years. I\u2019ve paid them $50 a year to keep those images safe but I have local backups and backups on cloud servers I also pay for. Same for my blog. My Twitter archive is great but it\u2019s the only backup of my tweets when Twitter finally dies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mastodon and the server I had joined originally is instance based. Instances come and go. The one I joined, <a href=\"https:\/\/social.yesterweb.org\/explore\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Yesterweb<\/a> I was going to send them a tip each month to fund operations but I learned that Mastodon will allow you to export a CSV of your posts but you can\u2019t import those posts anywhere else. You can also move servers but all you\u2019re doing is moving your followers, not your posts. I get why this isn\u2019t possible for both administration (content moderation) and server resources but I also think until that gets fleshed out, I\u2019m not entrusting my posts to someone else. I want them to be on a server I pay for.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For now, I\u2019m using a 3rd party host and paying $4 a month for them to handle all of the updates for me. I hope Mastodon will eventually let me move posts around. I\u2019d like that.<\/p>\n<p>You can follow me or not but the goal is to use Mastodon like I was using Micro.blog, App.net and WithKnown (self hosted) where I post short updates and photos. It\u2019s not meant to augment this blog but to be something entirely different. If you don\u2019t follow, I\u2019ll be adding a link to my Mastodon page on my website under a Micro-Blog link.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/masto.adamchandler.me\/@AdamChandler#\">@AdamChandler on Mastodon.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/masto.adamchandler.me\/@AdamChandler.rss\">Alternatively, you can subscribe to the RSS feed<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you really care about your data, you should host it yourself. Despite all of the talk this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11771","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-technology","7":"cs-entry","8":"cs-video-wrap"},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-33R","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11763,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2023\/01\/06\/linked-stammy-on-mastodon\/","url_meta":{"origin":11771,"position":0},"title":"Linked: Stammy on Mastodon","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"January 6, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Via Paul Stamatiou: I\u2019m hoping that the recent interest in Mastodon will get people to start thinking more about taking control of their data and online identity. Mastodon has a great shot at recreating that feeling of community that personal blogs used to have. It can be your own space.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12084,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2023\/07\/12\/social-media-is-there-a-social-network-for-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":11771,"position":1},"title":"Social Media: Is there a social network for me?","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"July 12, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Stratechery\u2019s Social\/Communications Map of 2023: I sit squarely in top left and have for over a decade. Joining Facebook in 2005 and Twitter in 2007, I had stopped using those networks completely by 2012. I found that my life outside of Facebook and Twitter wasn\u2019t as rich and fulfilling as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Social Media&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Social Media","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/social-media\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/threads-6.png.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/threads-6.png.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/threads-6.png.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6930,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2017\/07\/19\/linked-mastodon-social-is-an-open-source-twitter-competitor-thats-growing-like-crazy\/","url_meta":{"origin":11771,"position":2},"title":"Linked: &#8220;Mastodon.social is an open-source Twitter competitor that\u2019s growing like crazy&#8221;","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"July 19, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"via The Verge: To fund the project, Rochko set up a Patreon account, which is currently paying him about $1,000 a month. (Monthly hosting costs for Mastodon are currently around $100.) \u201cI\u2019m not doing this to get rich,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m doing this because I think it\u2019s right. I only\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12449,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2025\/01\/14\/my-relationship-with-micro-blogging-and-its-future\/","url_meta":{"origin":11771,"position":3},"title":"My Relationship with Micro Blogging and Its Future","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"January 14, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I joined Twitter back in 2006 and until 2010, had tweeted about 20,000 times a year before closing my account. Deleting Twitter and Facebook in 2011 are still some of my proudest technological decisions I\u2019ve made because well..history has certainly reinforced why. I\u2019ve still been really hungry for a short-form\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Social Media&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Social Media","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/social-media\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12514,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2025\/02\/14\/okay-micro-blog-is-really-freaking-awesome\/","url_meta":{"origin":11771,"position":4},"title":"Okay, Micro.blog is really freaking awesome!","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"February 14, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I joined Micro.blog many years ago around the time Manton Reece announced public access to the site following a successful crowdfunding campaign but I never used it. Micro.blog arrived around the time Mastodon and the concept of Federation came around but it took years for these networks to see resurgence\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12470,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2025\/01\/21\/technology-teach-and-literally-help-everyone-you-know-to-join-a-federated-social-network\/","url_meta":{"origin":11771,"position":5},"title":"Technology: Teach and literally help everyone you know to join a Federated social network","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"January 21, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Are we awake yet? Are we finally coming to our senses regarding social media? Is it crystal clear yet that we have created our generation\u2019s Walmart and it\u2019s time to burn it down? Are you ready to take action and destroy the empire of capitalist billionaires that are on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11771\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}