I read this post on Mastodon a couple of weeks ago:

Post by @Kletskous@mastodon.social

View on Mastodon

In English: they were wondering if there is a sample letter somewhere for inviting people to join Mastodon or the Fediverse.

This reminded me of a letter I had begun writing at some point for this purpose. I have also sent it a couple of times, but the last few months I’ve slagged in those duties a bit.

I still think it’s very important to point organisations to the Fediverse—especially organisations with a certain social goal, like WeMove, Avaaz or DeGoedeZaak. Organisations like Greenpeace would also do well to try and reduce their big tech use.

Sample letter

To help others with writing these kinds of letters to organisations that should give a good example, I’m sharing here what I’d written so far. It was kindly translated to English by Danie.

I am sharing this text under the CC0 licence (Public Domain). This means that I have waived all copyright. Feel free to reuse the letter, adapt it, set it to music… Whatever you like.

Dear team of [NAME ORGANISATION],

I was exploring your website and I’m a big fan of what you do. However, I would like to file a complaint: I noticed that for social media, you rely exclusively on platforms run by big tech companies (X, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, etc.).

I’d like to draw your attention to the Fediverse, a network of independent social media platforms such as Mastodon and Pixelfed.

The core of the Fediverse is decentralisation: individuals or organisations can run it themselves on servers of all sizes, meaning the network can never fall into the hands of a single large company. The video on this website explains it well: https://fediverse.info. More information about the Fediverse can also be found there.

The great thing is that all platforms within the Fediverse (Mastodon, Pixelfed and Peertube are the best known) are interconnected. For example, a Mastodon user can view posts from a Peertube user and respond to them. In my view, this is the only truly ethical alternative to the major well-known companies that currently control social media (and thus the flow of information for a large part of the world’s population!).

They control the algorithm that determines what users see on their websites. And given that a large part of Europe gets its news from social media, that influence is quite significant (source: https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/3592).

I understand that only a small percentage of the worldwide population is on the Fediverse and that, as a result, it is likely a lower priority for you. However, due to growing concerns about Big Tech, there is a significant group of potential users—such as myself—who refuse to use those platforms any longer and who will be sympathetic towards organisations that join the Fediverse. Your organization does serve as something of a role model, so I think it would be quite helpful if you treated Mastodon (or another Fediverse platform) as a fully-fledged alternative. (In fact, the best alternative!). Change has to start somewhere, after all... I imagine you know all about that.

Besides, it’s a small effort: whatever you share on ‘mainstream’ social media can also be shared on Mastodon. There are even paid services available for this, such as https://publer.com/ and https://buffer.com/mastodon.

Hopefully, you’ll consider taking this step to make the world’s information supply a little less dependent on big tech companies with a questionable moral compass!


Warm regards,

Further Reading & Resources

• There is One Fediverse. There are a Million Pickleball Courts. A plea for decentralization as a solution to the toxicity of major social media networks.
• Niet Zonder! (Not Without!) An extensive list of reasons to switch to open-source alternatives to Big Tech platforms.
• #MakeSocialsSocialAgain. A campaign by Bits of Freedom, DeGoedeZaak, Noorderlicht, PublicSpaces and Waag Futurelab encouraging users to leave X.
• Fedicate.org. A clean, step-by-step guide to understanding and joining the Fediverse.
• Fedi.tips. An informal, non-technical starter guide for everything Mastodon and beyond.
• The Federation. A platform that provides detailed statistics, showing the amount of active users on the Fediverse.

Another thing: Christiaan Jacobs gave the tip that most organisations tend to respond better to official “complaints”. It will then have to be reported to the management. I have therefore edited the above letter to include the word “complaint”.

Have you sent this letter? Let me know in the comments or mention me on the Fediverse. Please also let me know if you have any suggestions for improvements or new versions of this—consider this a first draft.