Mastodon is a microblogging platform, often compared to Twitter. If you’re not familiar with Mastodon, you can probably skip this interview. Ash Furrow is the administrator of one “instance” of Mastodon. In this 25 minute interview he answers the questions below.

1. Would you mind telling us a little about yourself? What do you do when you’re not feeding and caring for Mastodon.Technical?
2. How did you get involved with the Mastodon movement?
3. When did Mastodon.Technical go live? Do you recall who was Tooter #1?
4. Are you (now or previously) active on other social media platforms?
5. While a lot of people are apparently happy with Facebook and Twitter, many others are fleeing and looking for something else. What’s happening?
6. What are the important differences between Mastodon and the more established social platforms?
7. There have been no shortage of Twitter “replacements” but few have gotten traction. Is Mastodon different? Why?
8. The “federation” concept seems pretty simple to me but I keep reading about users who find it confusing. Is this a problem?
9. Are there instances operated by hate groups? Have you had to ban users from your instance?
10. What is the biggest misconception about Mastodon?
11. How much time do you invest each week working on your Mastodon instance?
12. As it grows, do you feel trapped in any sense?
13. As the admin for your instance, you are — I assume — all powerful. You’ve published user guidelines, have you had to exercise that power?
14. What would you like the Mastodon Federation to look like a year from now?