Challenges in the Decentralised Web: The Mastodon Case
Abstract
The Decentralised Web (DW) has recently seen a renewed momentum, with a number of DW platforms like Mastodon, PeerTube, and Hubzilla gaining increasing traction. These offer alternatives to traditional social networks like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, by enabling the operation of web infrastructure and services without centralised ownership or control. Although their services differ greatly, modern DW platforms mostly rely on two key innovations: first, their open source software allows anybody to setup independent servers ("instances") that people can sign-up to and use within a local community; and second, they build on top of federation protocols so that instances can mesh together, in a peer-to-peer fashion, to offer a globally integrated platform.
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As decentralized networks scale, infrastructure and content-driven pressures can push social networks back toward centralized control to address challenges related to cost, performance, and user experience.
“As decentralized networks scale, infrastructure and contentdriven pressures can push social networks back toward centralized control to address challenges related to cost, performance, and user experience [95].”
From Seeing the Politics of Decentralized Social Media Protocols (2026) · cites this paper as [95]
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- Authors
- Raman, A., Joglekar, S., Cristofaro, E. D., Sastry, N., & Tyson, G.
- Affiliations
- King's College London (GB)
- University College London (GB)
- Queen Mary University of London
- Venue
- Proceedings of the Internet Measurement Conference
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2019-10-21
- Pages
- 217-229
- OpenAlex
- W2980412466
- Cited by
- 118
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 27 · 2024: 29 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 10
- FWCI
- 7.17
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) (publishedVersion)
- Rare & Special e-Zone (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion)
- Queen Mary Research Online (Queen Mary University of London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- The Alan Turing Institute under EPSRC grant (EP/N510129/1)
- European Union?s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program under the Marie Sk?odowska-Curie ?ENCASE? project (691025)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Peer-to-Peer Network Technologies
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Mobile and Web Applications
- Keywords
- Mastodon, open source software, peer-to-peer networks
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