In the current landscape of digital transformations, the search for technological sovereignty and alternatives to centralized platforms has become a central issue for governments, educational institutions, and social movements around the world. With this in mind, Blog do GEICT presents an interview conducted by Damny Laya with Wladimir Mufty. Laya holds a PhD in Science and Technology Policy (IG/Unicamp) and is currently a student of Scientific and Cultural Journalism at Labjor/Unicamp, with a Media Science scholarship focused on the debate about digital sovereignty and alternative social networks. In the interview, Laya and Mufty provide a detailed overview of how Mastodon works, its differences from Big Tech platforms in terms of privacy and data control. Furthermore, they offer concrete examples of governments and universities that are adopting this federated network as part of a digital autonomy strategy, something essential for anyone wishing to understand the direction of institutional communication in times of platformization and political polarization. Enjoy the reading!

---

By Damny Laya

Damny Laya holds a PhD in Science and Technology Policy (Unicamp), a Master's degree in Social Studies of Science (IVIC – Venezuela), and is a student in Science Journalism at the Laboratory for Advanced Studies in Journalism (Labjor). He researches digital sovereignty and alternative social networks. 

With the acquisition of Twitter, now X, by Elon Musk in 2022 and his political alignment with the global far-right movement, several organizations, institutions, and governments around the world migrated from this social network and sought alternatives. In this migration, some users found a “new home” on Mastodon – a decentralized social network, which does not have a CEO running it, the most popular in the federated universe (Fediverse), with nearly 9 million users out of the total 12 million that are part of this universe.

Mastodon operates under an open-source structure, meaning anyone can take this code and install their own Mastodon instance on a server. An instance is like a community that operates with its own moderation rules and codes of conduct. It can be a community open to the public or just for employees of an institution or students of a university, an institute or college. However, these communities can communicate with other instances. In short, entry to the instance can be private, only for a specific community, but the flow of content and interaction on the Mastodon network can occur between users with accounts from different instances. The easiest way to understand how Mastodon works is to look at how email works: you can use different email services, such as Gmail, Yahoo!, or Outlook, but you can still send emails to other people, no matter which of these services you use.

Mastodon works without a recommendation algorithm; the feed is created in chronological order of posts from users you follow. It also has no ads, nor does it collect your data to profile you. This means greater autonomy and privacy for the user. And most importantly, control over the content you post and consume. Due to these aspects, Mastodon has become an option for governments, institutions, social movements, and people concerned about digital sovereignty who want to cut dependence on big tech social networks.

For example, the governments of France, Germany, and the Netherlands, as well as the European Commission, have opened their own instances where all their employees and different government bodies can create their accounts and communicate with the Fediverse audience. The movement seems to be motivated by the attempt to build digital sovereignty and exercise greater control over the communication and information of these government bodies. Likewise, public universities have made this move, as is the case with universities in the Netherlands. There, thanks to a pilot project created by SURF, the Dutch National Research and Education Network (NREN), an instance on Mastodon was opened to host its members, which include universities, universities of applied sciences, vocational education institutions, research institutions, and academic hospitals. SURF provides shared IT and ICT services and innovation for the Dutch education and research sector, just like the Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP) in Brazil.

To understand how this experience has been, its challenges, reach, and lessons learned, I interviewed the project leader, Wladimir Mufty, Program Manager for Digital Sovereignty at SURF. He drives innovation at the crossroads of education, technology, and public values. Collaborating with the education sector, he demonstrates practical alternatives to big tech, addressing platformization risks while showcasing opportunities for transformative change and to build digital sovereignty.

Damny Laya: Researching the relationship between the Fediverse, digital sovereignty, and public institutions, I came across SURF’s pilot project and its Mastodon instance. Can you tell me a bit about how this pilot project works?

Wladimir Mufty: In late 2022, just before Christmas, there was significant unrest on Twitter (now X). Many researchers rely on social media for academic communication, sharing publications, collaborating, announcing events, and building communities. However, the atmosphere on the platform had deteriorated considerably. It had become socially unsafe, with increasing hostility, misogyny, racism, sexism, and misinformation.

The research and education community is strongly values-driven. Social safety, transparency, combating disinformation, and safeguarding academic freedom are core principles. These values were increasingly at odds with the direction of this social media platform and its owner(s).

As a trusted cooperative organization serving these institutions, SURF was asked whether it could help provide an alternative by its members. Since SURF already delivers shared digital infrastructure and innovation, it was in a strong position to set up a secure and well-managed Mastodon environment. Rather than each institution running its own decentralized server independently, SURF could organize this centrally, ensuring proper security, governance, and compliance from the start and let users focus on exploring, using and learning the platform we had chosen as the most value driven and value fitting platform.

The pilot project involved launching a Mastodon instance (server) tailored to the Dutch research and education community. In addition to deploying the platform, SURF built additional functionality on top of it.

For example:
– Users can log in using their existing institutional accounts (such as their university credentials). This means they do not need to create entirely new profiles. Authentication can be linked to the same accounts they use for research systems or services like eduroam, they can choose to work with self chosen usernames on the platform if they choose to not share their identity.

– SURF developed support for group accounts. This allows multiple individuals to manage a single Mastodon account without sharing passwords. This is particularly useful for research groups, marketing and communications teams, and academic consortia.These additions lowered the threshold for adoption and made the platform more practical for institutional use. The result is a Mastodon environment that is still running today, designed specifically to support digital sovereignty, academic values, and a safer online space for research and education communities within the broader Fediverse.

DL: What motivated SURF to open a Mastodon instance and make it available for education and research in the Netherlands? Why Mastodon?

WM: The core motivation was that the research and education community still needed a place to stay connected. Researchers and educators rely heavily on long-term professional networks. They share knowledge, publications, events, collaborations, and discussions that often span decades. A researcher active today may still be active in 10, 20, or even 30 years. These communities are global and built on continuity and trust. In its early years, Twitter provided exactly that kind of networked space.

However, as the platform changed, the environment became increasingly misaligned with the core values of the academic sector. When that shift became evident, we began exploring alternatives. We evaluated several social media platforms and carefully weighed them against a set of public and academic values: privacy, transparency, governance, ownership, moderation policies, accountability, and control. Who has decision-making power? Who owns the platform? What happens when policies change? Under which jurisdiction does it operate? How is social safety safeguarded?

After considering these factors, we concluded that Mastodon was the most appropriate choice. Mastodon has existed since 2016 and is built on open-source software and open standards. What makes it particularly attractive for academia is its decentralized architecture. There is no single owner, no central authority, and no shareholders determining the direction of the platform. This aligns closely with academic values such as institutional autonomy, distributed governance, and digital sovereignty

Unlike commercially owned platforms, for example Bluesky, which still have investors, executives, and centralized decision-making structures, Mastodon allows institutions to operate their own servers (instances). Each instance can define its own moderation policies, governance model, and community guidelines. If users disagree with how one server is run, they can move to another without losing access to the broader network.

This decentralization is similar to how email works: there is no single global owner of email. Different providers operate their own servers, but they communicate through shared open protocols. Mastodon, and the broader Fediverse, follows the same principle. Independent servers interoperate using common standards, enabling communication across the network without central control.

For SURF and its member institutions, this model strongly supports digital sovereignty. It allows the Dutch education and research sector to host and govern its own infrastructure, apply its own moderation policies, and embed academic values into the design and operation of the platform.

Of course, there is the question of network effects. Large commercial platforms such as LinkedIn or Instagram have significantly larger user bases. However, for SURF the key question was not simply scale, but sustainability and alignment with public values. Centralized platforms may offer reach, but they also concentrate power in the hands of a few actors. When leadership or ownership changes, policies and culture can shift rapidly.

A decentralized model mitigates that risk. It distributes control, reduces dependency on a single company, and allows public institutions to take responsibility for their own digital environment.

For these reasons, Mastodon was not just a technical choice… it was a values-driven decision that aligns with the long-term interests of education and research in the Netherlands.

DL: How has the reception been among universities and other research institutions regarding the project? And how would you describe the participation of students, professors, and researchers in using this platform?

WM: The reception among universities and research institutions has been largely positive, for several reasons.

On a practical level, the platform initially felt different from what people were used to. Certain functions had different names or worked slightly differently. For example, there is no “retweet” but a “boost,” and no “like” but a “favorite.” The interface required some adjustment. Over time, many of these differences became less of a barrier.

Importantly, the academic community is generally capable of handling a certain level of friction. Researchers and educators are used to engaging with complex systems, learning new tools, and navigating change. So while there were minor usability concerns, they were not perceived as fundamental obstacles.

More significantly, the project had symbolic value. Although it may seem like a relatively small initiative in the broader debate about digital sovereignty, it became one of the first tangible examples of the sector taking control of its own digital infrastructure in reaction to a lost of values. Especially in 2022 and 2023, discussions about European technological autonomy and dependency on large American tech companies were gaining momentum already. This Mastodon initiative demonstrated that public institutions could successfully organize, govern, and operate a social platform themselves.

That created a strong sense of collective spirit. It showed that a community driven, sector based platform could run reliably and support meaningful interaction. That early momentum played an important role in adoption and perception.

There was also significant media attention surrounding the launch. In some ways, that attention felt disproportionate, as many communities had been working with Mastodon for years. However, SURF represents a well organized national sector with strong institutional backing, which made the initiative more visible.

The media interest may also reflect something broader. Journalism, like academia, has become highly dependent on large American social media platforms for distribution and visibility. By the time of this project, many media organizations were already grappling with issues such as platform dependency, algorithmic control, misinformation, declining referral traffic, and limited control over narrative visibility. The SURF initiative therefore resonated beyond academia. It symbolized an alternative model aligned with public values.

In terms of participation, researchers have generally been the most active users. For them, the platform functions as a professional network where they share publications, comment on developments in their field, engage in public debate, and maintain international connections.

Institutional accounts such as those of universities, research groups, and communications teams have also been active, particularly because SURF enabled shared or group accounts. This makes it easier for teams to manage one profile collaboratively.

Student participation has been more varied. While some students are active, many continue to use larger mainstream platforms where their peer networks are already present. This reflects the ongoing importance of network effects. Platforms with larger user bases naturally attract broader participation.

Overall, the project has been received as a meaningful and credible alternative, particularly valued for its alignment with academic principles such as autonomy, transparency, and responsible governance. Even where adoption is not universal, the initiative is widely recognized as an important step toward strengthening digital sovereignty within the Dutch research and education sector.

DL: How many universities have started using Mastodon through SURF’s project?

WM: The answer is not entirely straightforward, as it requires some nuance. The Netherlands has fourteen universities. What I can say is that all of them have stopped using Twitter, now X. They did not all leave at the same time, but the last remaining university has now also discontinued active use. Some institutions have fully deleted their accounts, while others maintain a dormant account in order to retain their name but are no longer active.

In terms of Mastodon through SURF’s project, a number of universities are active on our server with institutional accounts. However, participation is not limited to central university accounts. In many cases, the active users are individuals affiliated with those universities, such as researchers and employees. In addition, you see sub-entities such as university libraries, faculties, or research institutes creating their own accounts. There are also consortia active on the platform, and some of those consortia consist of multiple universities. universities are also active on other Mastodon servers, that is great, they don’t have to move, they are welcome, but not an objective for us to tell members what server they should use to enter the Fediverse, the most important thing is: they should enter the Fediverse!

Because of this layered structure, it is difficult to provide one precise number of “universities” using the platform. The boundaries are not always clear. When does something count as a university, a faculty, a research group, or a consortium?

What I can share in terms of figures is that the platform currently has over 1,250 users in total. Among those are approximately 50 group accounts. Each of those group accounts could represent a university, a university library, a faculty, a research group, or a consortium.
So rather than a fixed number of universities, it is more accurate to describe it as broad sector participation at multiple institutional levels.

DL: What have been the challenges and successes of the project?

WM: The challenges and successes of the project operate on both a practical and a strategic level. One of the main challenges has been organizational. SURF is accustomed to managing large scale, high investment infrastructure projects. These typically include national supercomputers, quantum computing initiatives, subsea cables, eduroam networks, secure WiFi infrastructures, GPT’s and large scale logon systems. These projects often involve substantial budgets and long term investment strategies.
By contrast, Mastodon is a relatively small and compact service. It is lightweight in terms of cost and infrastructure. Paradoxically, that makes it harder to position within existing governance and funding frameworks. Our internal processes are designed for major infrastructure investments, with detailed cost models, depreciation schemes, sector wide agreements, and formal adoption trajectories.

When introducing something like Mastodon, institutions quite rightly ask questions about cost, usage, sustainability, and long term value. In financial terms, it is modest. In strategic terms, however, it contributes to something much larger, namely digital sovereignty and public value driven infrastructure. The difficulty lies in the fact that our processes are not yet fully adapted to accommodate smaller, flexible, value driven tools of this kind.

This is something we are actively working on. Mastodon is not the only example. There are other decentralized or open alternatives, such as PeerTube a Fediverse video platform, that could also play a meaningful role in reducing dependency on Big Tech. Developing governance and funding models that support these smaller but strategically important tools remains an ongoing challenge.In terms of successes, the community response has been very encouraging. Many users express appreciation for the atmosphere. They often describe it as reminiscent of the early days of Twitter, when sharing knowledge, humor, and informal exchanges felt more organic and less polarized. Not everything is formal or serious. There are even lighthearted traditions such as “Caturday” where people simply share pictures of cats. That sense of community and informality matters.

Each Mastodon server tends to develop its own identity. Some focus on sports, others on music or mathematics. The SURF instance has developed a clear profile centered around research and education. Users value that shared context and the fact that the platform reflects the norms and culture of the academic community.

Another important success is that the platform provides a concrete example of digital sovereignty in practice. Rather than discussing abstract concepts about values, control, or dependency, Mastodon allows us to demonstrate these differences in a tangible way. It makes it possible to explain the contrast between open and closed systems, centralized and decentralized governance, concentration of power versus distributed responsibility.

Because Mastodon is built on open standards and open protocols within the broader Fediverse, it becomes an accessible and practical illustration of how public institutions can reclaim agency over their digital infrastructure. In that sense, the project has not only been a functional success but also an important educational and strategic one.

DL: Are there any lessons learned from this experience?

WM: Yes, there have been several important lessons learned, both technical and organizational. First, from a technological perspective, the platform has proven to be stable and reliable. The core infrastructure works well. The main challenges are not technical in nature, but relate more to usability, expectations, and cultural adaptation.

One key lesson is that when introducing an alternative platform, you constantly face trade-offs between values and user expectations. Many users compare Mastodon to Twitter or other commercial platforms. They expect similar features, such as detailed analytics, global search functionality, and visibility metrics. For example, communication teams often want to know how many times a post has been viewed, clicked, or shared.

However, Mastodon is built around different design principles. Privacy is a core value. By design, it does not track users in the same way commercial platforms do. It does not provide the same level of granular statistics or global search across the entire network. These limitations are intentional and rooted in values such as privacy, decentralization, and data minimization.

This creates a real tension. On the one hand, institutions say they want value driven digitalization and greater digital sovereignty. On the other hand, communication departments are still evaluated on marketing metrics and performance indicators that were shaped by commercial social media platforms over the past twenty years. That creates a structural dilemma. The values behind the technology may not always align with existing institutional performance frameworks.

Another lesson concerns decentralization itself. The concept is not always intuitive. The idea that you cannot simply search the entire network in the same way you would on a centralized platform can be confusing for many users. A small group strongly values these principled design choices. A larger group may find them difficult to understand or inconvenient. This leads to ongoing discussions within the community about whether to prioritize growth and familiarity, or to remain strictly aligned with the original principles of decentralization and openness.

There is a natural tension between those who advocate for scaling up and adapting to mainstream expectations, and those who believe that an alternative must remain fundamentally different in order to remain meaningful. That debate is healthy and part of the maturation process. Progress is gradual. Sometimes you move forward, sometimes you reassess. Overall, the ecosystem is becoming more mature.

Another important area of learning concerns moderation. Historically, platforms like Mastodon and the broader Fediversehave often attracted technically inclined, highly value driven communities. However, those groups are not necessarily representative of society as a whole. If moderation is handled only by a narrow demographic group, that can create blind spots.

We have therefore reflected on how to create a more representative moderation structure, involving people from different educational sectors and diverse backgrounds. Interestingly, in our case, moderation has required very little intervention. Because users log in via their institutional accounts, even if they use a pseudonym publicly, they know they are accountable within their organization. That accountability mechanism has significantly reduced harmful behavior. As a result, moderation has remained minimal, which is both fortunate and somewhat theoretical in terms of building large moderation teams

Overall, perhaps the most important lesson is that the technology itself is not the primary challenge. The real challenges lie in usability, network effects, governance models, institutional incentives, and aligning digital tools with long term public values.

DL: You have related this project as an expression of digital sovereignty. Could you go a little deeper into that?

WM: Yes, absolutely. I consider this project to be a concrete expression of digital sovereignty. For me, digital sovereignty is about the ability to exercise control. It means having governance capacity, strategic direction, and real decision making power over your digital infrastructure. It includes the freedom to choose, the ability to innovate independently, and the capacity to shape technology according to your own priorities rather than those of external commercial actors.

When you possess these elements, you are able to safeguard and actively defend public values. These values include autonomy, privacy, social and human centered interaction, independence, and fairness. Without at least a minimum degree of digital sovereignty, it becomes very difficult to protect and sustain those values in the long term.

The Mastodon project embodies these principles. By hosting and governing our own instance, the education and research sector in the Netherlands retains control over moderation policies, technical development, data handling, and community standards. Decisions are not dictated by shareholders, venture capital interests, or changing corporate strategies.

Because Mastodon is open source and built on open standards within the broader Fediverse, it allows institutions and individuals to operate their own infrastructure while remaining interoperable with others. That combination of autonomy and interoperability is crucial. It avoids isolation while preventing dependency on a single centralized provider.

In that sense, the project is not just symbolically linked to digital sovereignty. It is a practical demonstration of it. It shows that public institutions can organize, govern, and innovate digitally in alignment with their own values, rather than outsourcing that responsibility to large (commercial) platforms.

DL: The Dutch government has also made a Mastodon instance available since 2025 for all government organizations? How do you evaluate this policy?

WM: I think it is a fantastic development, and it genuinely makes me proud that the Dutch government has taken this step. It is important to clarify that the government instance is not intended for individual civil servants or for all 18 million Dutch citizens. It is designed for government organizations. This includes ministries, ministers themselves, executive agencies, tax authorities, regional authorities, and a wide range of public bodies that maintain an official social media presence through this shared Mastodon server.

I also see similar developments emerging in other countries, such as Germany. The fact that the Netherlands has taken a leading role in this area deserves real recognition, especially for the people within government who have worked hard to make it happen.

We are in contact with them, and we share knowledge about challenges and opportunities where relevant. That collaboration is valuable and encouraging to see.

At the same time, I would say that the government operates in a more complex and politically sensitive environment than the education and research sector. Within government communication, there is a strong prevailing view that public institutions must be present where citizens already are. That makes it more difficult to argue that certain commercial platforms may not be sustainable or aligned with public values in the long term.

There are also concrete risks. For example, if official government information such as public health guidance were to be labeled as misinformation or have its visibility reduced by a commercial platform, that would be highly problematic. Similarly, if a security region or emergency service needs to communicate urgently, it should not have to worry about being blocked or restricted by a privately owned platform or by decisions made outside the country’s democratic control.

For that reason, I believe the government’s decision to operate its own Mastodon instance is an important and courageous step. It reduces strategic dependency and strengthens the resilience of public communication infrastructure.

In some ways, it makes me at least as proud as our own sectoral Mastodon initiative within education and research. Perhaps even more so, because for government this move requires breaking with long established assumptions about how to reach citizens and how to structure digital communication. It represents not only a technical decision, but a shift in thinking about autonomy, responsibility, and the role of public institutions in the digital sphere.

DL: Would you like to add any further information or perspectives that I may have missed?

WM: One broader perspective I would like to add is that, historically, digitalization in the Netherlands has not been strongly values driven. We have traditionally focused on price and functionality. And to be fair, we are very good at that. We negotiate competitive contracts with large technology providers, and we are skilled at specifying functional requirements and getting exactly what we ask for.

We also tend to set clear standards on issues such as privacy. In some cases, large technology companies have even made specific adjustments for the Dutch context, including for our education and research sector, to meet stricter privacy requirements.

However, when it comes to broader values such as autonomy, interoperability, and structural independence, those have often been secondary considerations. When faced with trade-offs, cost and functionality have frequently outweighed deeper questions about long term control and dependency. In the Netherlands, we sometimes describe this tension as the difference between the “market trader” and the “preacher.” Do we optimize for price and efficiency, or do we prioritize principles and values?

For a long time, we tended toward the first approach. We used to look at countries like France with a certain irony, describing them as somewhat chauvinistic because of their strong emphasis on national control in areas such as energy, digital infrastructure, and public sector IT choices. But one could also interpret that not as chauvinism, but as a consistent prioritization of autonomy.
The same applies to Germany. From a highly digitalized Dutch perspective, we sometimes questioned why certain public processes there remained less digitized, such as tax administration that historically relied longer on paper based systems. But that was not necessarily conservatism. It reflected a deeply rooted commitment to privacy and caution around centralized data systems, shaped by historical experience.

What we are seeing now in the Netherlands, and initiatives like Mastodon are an example of this, is a gradual shift. We are beginning to weigh values such as autonomy, control, and interoperability more seriously in our digital strategies. In that sense, we are catching up.

The Netherlands is a strong and healthy society. We have a vibrant civil culture, strong public institutions, and a collaborative tradition. But in the digital domain, we have allowed ourselves to become too dependent on external actors. There may be historical reasons for that, but it is encouraging to see that we are now approaching digitalization more explicitly from a values perspective.

If we embed those values structurally in our choices, we will not need to reopen the same debate about digital sovereignty every five years. Instead, we can work toward long term, sustainable solutions that remain aligned with our own societal principles and are therefore more durable over time. That, in my view, is the real significance of initiatives like this.