Move Slowly and Build Bridges - Mastodon, the Fediverse, and the Struggle for Democratic Social Media

Move Slowly and Build Bridges tells the story of activists, software developers, artists, and everyday people who have built the fediverse -- a large, noncentralized, alternative social media system. Making this ethically-run social media system is no easy task. Can it survive? Can we -- all of us -- have our own social media? in this thoroughly researched book, Robert W. Gehl argues that the answer is yes -- but it won't be easy.

List of contents

• Introduction: On Alternative Social Media


• Chapter 1: Critical Reverse Engineering: How Mastodon Became a Twitter Alternative


• Chapter 2: Techlash: How to Vaporize Elon Musk


• Chapter 3: The Non-Standard Standard: When ActivityPub met Mastodon


• Chapter 4: Codes of Conduct


• Chapter 5: Rage and Joy: Playvicious, #Fediblock, the BadSpace, and the Politics of Defederation


• Chapter 6: Paying for It: The Fediverse's Alternative Economies


• Chapter 7: To Finity and Before: Environmentalist Experiments on the Fediverse


• Chapter 8: Threads


• Conclusion: Caring for it: Putting the Ethics in Ethical Social Media


• Epilogue: On Godmonsters, or Looking Backward and Forward at Social Media


• Appendix: Research Note


• Bibliography


• Index

Product details

• Authors: Robert W Gehl, Robert W. (Ontario Research Chair of Digital Gehl, Gehl Robert W.
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 08.08.2025
• EAN: 9780197776674
• ISBN: 978-0-19-777667-4
• No. of pages: 240
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Media, communication > General, dictionaries; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Communication Studies, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / Media & Internet, Communication Studies, Diplomacy, Media studies: internet, digital media and society