Cool, Cool, Cool...
Mastadon is just like “Zeronet”.
The only difference is Zeronet is tighter with ID and security.
I’ve always wanted to start my own Mastadon or similar server but they all require root access to install and most also require java on the server, both of which are somewhat high dollar hosting. At least compared to the shared hosting I’m used to.
Are you familiar with Matrix messaging app? I use it to chat with my wife from my laptop to her cell phone and it’s encrypted. Can’t SMS/text from a computer so it works great for us. It’s also decentralized so technically, I could run the server for us to use and in that case, I could use freedombox which already has Matrix as one of it’s apps. Might just have to do that. https://matrix.org/
The open source community, most of whom are liberal, some leftist, have been working on getting away from centralized tech forever. It’s pretty much their whole purpose. Software by the people, for the people and free. Funny how they overlap with the founders’ vision.