Yes, it is. They are within the Mastodon social network mastodon.eus (1,500 users) and mastodon.jalgi.eus (100 users). How do you understand this? This social network is decentralized and federated. That is, within Mastodon you can create as many communities as you like and are already created. There are certain criteria or objectives in the world.

Some of these communities are based on the linguistic community, for example mastodont.cat (in Catalan). Others are thematic. Mastodon’s lead developer, German Eugene Rochko mastodon.social, created it for general use. It's the largest community in Western Europe. Mastodon.eus and mastodon.jalgi.eus speak in Basque and are based on Basque and Basque culture. Enrolling in a community does not mean being isolated in that group, as it allows you to connect with other communities in Mastodon.

Differences with Twitter

Mastodon understands property differently. Each community has a group of administrations, it is preferred that the number of users of each community is not very high and managers feel closer. Mastodon is not a commercial network. There are no paid ads and user data is not used for other purposes.
This social network ensures that the tool is in Basque. Twitter, like having the tool in Basque, can decide not to do it, and it is not in the hands of users. In fact, it has taken a couple of steps back: unlike what happened before, now in the mobile it cannot be used in Euskera and the last interface has not been translated into Euskera.

Twitter has become an unpleasant site for several people and communities. Threats, persecution, are not always strictly followed and many users feel unprotected. Several of these people and groups have found refuge in Mastodon. For example, in Mastodon there are many sites run by LGBT+ communities.

What can be done in Mastodon?

Messages have a limit of 500 characters, a margin higher than that of other similar social networks. In the opinion of the managers, this allows to work the contents in more detail and the conversations can be more powerful. For those who want to avoid moving or painful images, it has a warning mechanism. Each community has the ability to create their own emojis or images. Mastodon.eus created the ikurriña, ahobizi, belarriprest, Durangoko Azoka (DA! ), Maridomingi, Olentzero, Mastodon and Pixelfed (Free Alternative to Instagram).

As for privacy, there is a possibility to lock your account. In addition, the user can take other measures: specify the level of privacy of each message sent, get out of search engine indexing, hide who follows and who follows.

Deleting the account on other social networks is not easy. All data can be extracted from the mastodon account and the account deleted.

Who are the creators?

The project Mastodon.eus materialized in 2018, on 21 November it was officially presented. It's a collaborative work. They are promoters: Azkue Fundazioa, PuntuEUS Fundazioa, Iametza, Laboratorio 2.0, Dinahosting and Talaios Koop. Ownership and management of this social network is not closed and those interested in participating in the project have the doors open. Mastodon.jalgi.eus Izarkom, a cooperative telecommunications operator in the Basque Country, started a few months earlier.

Mastodon, 2016

The German Eugen Rochko founded, in October 2016, at just 24 years old, a social network that is based on a decentralized structure and free software. The data is indicative, as there is no centralized management, but it has almost two million users distributed in 6,442 communities.

The German creator has used for the image of the social network to the mastodon, who lived in prehistory and disappeared later. That is precisely why “toot” messages are published through Mastodon. “Toot” is the sound that somehow sounded like that mammal. A survey was conducted of Mastodon.eus and dominated the survey of “ü”, but “orro”, “marru” and “toot” are also used.