SURF Program Manager Talks about Their Mastodon Pilot for Dutch Higher Education

One of the more noteworthy events that has happened recently is the launch of a Mastodon pilot by SURF, the Dutch IT cooperative for education and research. But what is it, and why is this so relevant? I spoke with Wladimir Mufty, Program Manager at SURF, to learn more.

Let’s start with the big numbers: with this pilot, tens of thousands of Dutch students and researchers can now start with Mastodon without having to register and pick out a server: a one-click login via their institute is enough. Even better, this number can easily grow much larger as other universities join the pilot program.

SURF is the Dutch National Research and Education Network in technical terms, comparable with Internet2 in the USA. All major research universities, applied research universities and research institutes are part of the cooperative. They manage IT systems like eduroam, the Wi-Fi service that students and researchers can use even when they are not at their own institution. SURF also operates a 1-click login for the cloud services that the members use. And this 1-click login is a major reason of why this pilot is so interesting.

Background and history

I asked Wladimir Mufty to explain / elaborate on the history and background of the pilot. He explains it is closely linked to the chaos at Twitter since Elon Musk’s takeover in October 2022. A lot of people made good use of Twitter on personal accounts, with especially scientists and researchers building valuable networks and communities. They started asking around of how to continue and what to do, and those questions started to echo around the organisations, and finally landed at SURF.

SURF had some previous experience with decentralized social media, a pilot was considered in 2016 as part of an exploratory innovation program. This was seen as promising, but it also came too early; the concept of decentralization was hard to grasp, and the technology not fully evolved yet.

Around Christmas 2022, SURF made the decision to start a Mastodon pilot, offering the educational organisations in their network to let SURF manage the technical side, allowing the organisations to focus on usage.

The Mastodon Pilot

SURF designed the following system. SURF hosts a single Mastodon instance, social.edu.nl. Only people who are currently part of the SURF network, meaning all current students and researchers, can join.

People join via their existing institution ID. This has the following advantages:

• Skip the registration process
• Users decide if you prefer to stay anonymous or if they want to use their own identify. All users, even the anonymous ones, are guaranteed part of the Dutch research and education network, due to the mandatory use of the institution ID login.
• It offers managed “group accounts”, an account that multiple people can access without having to share passwords for that account.

Currently, Mastodon, does not allow an easy way for multiple people to access a single account, and this is only possible with password sharing. By linking it to their verified identity, multiple people can access the same account, for example a university’s communication account.

Mufy sees three different categories of users that will make use of the Mastodon server:

1. The individual user; such as students and researchers.
2. Official communications channels by the participating organisations.
3. A variety of subgroups: for example a faculty’ students associations, a research team or a faculty.

The second and third category of users will often be group accounts, making the ability to use those communal accounts without password sharing extra powerful.

Community and compliance

Wladimir Mufty says that the response from the Mastodon community has been very positive. It has not been seen as threatening that a large organisation enters the space. He says that people see it as a good thing that Mastodon and the fediverse get put in the spotlight. Incidentally, this is also visible in how the news has spread around the feeds recently, with the news messages getting large amount of positive engagement. Current communities have been supportive both vocally, but for example, also mastodon.nl and mstdn.social providing technical support.

I asked whether any legal challenges / issues might be expected to surface. FT Alphaville tried hosting their own Mastodon instance, and shut it down after a few months, because they struggled with the complications of legal and compliance. For FT Alphaville the main consideration was figuring out what exactly their legal and compliance status actually was. SURF prides itself on a large institutional knowledge base for complex legal and compliance questions. While Mufty sees challenges and questions that need to be answered, this does not seem insurmountable. I found one part of his answer notable in this: Mufty pointed towards EU Voice, the server for official EU institutions. He says that because the EU is putting in the effort of setting up a Mastodon server, SURF can also feel confident that they can manage as well.

Alumni and user moderation

What is one of the strong sides of the project, the easy login via the affiliated institute, can turn into an issue later on: what happens when a student or researcher leaves the organisation? Can you still use the Mastodon server in this case? This is one of the things that the pilot is trying to find out. Mufty looks to the current features for moving to another Mastodon server first, and expect that users will use that service for now. During the pilot SURF will explore broader technical solutions for identity management that can work even for alumni. But it is part of a bigger question within the community, that not only SURF has to grapple with. Beyond the technical considerations, how do organisations that allow their members on a fediverse server deal alumni? It is preferable to have them stay on the server? What are the advantages, and the disadvantages? These are all questions that will need to be answered, and the community at wide will need to get experience with.

Hosting user generated content means moderation, so what does that look like here? Currently there are five moderaters on the server, explains Mufty. The goal is to move towards a proper governance structure. This is one of the aspects of the pilot that SURF is looking to explore, with the hope of getting a board that accurately represents the community and that has the option to file complaints.

Looking forward

The pilot is planned to run for the remainder of 2023. What does SURF look for in evaluating the pilot? Mufty says that this is not a numbers-based approach. Instead they are looking to answer questions like whether organisations actually use the program, and whether they are willing to share in the costs. He is hoping to get answers on how the pilot can bring the values on autonomy, privacy, inclusivity and meaningful interaction into practice. Is the added value clear, and is this something that organisations feels like it fits with their identity and portfolio? SURF is also taking a deep look at other decentralized services on the fediverse, and see what is possible. Practicial considerations will take prominence at this stage. The issues under consideration are firstly whether the technology is mature enough to assure it functions well enough in a real world setting, as well as understanding if everyone’s responsibilities, privacy and legal position are clear and workable.

For Mufty, the theoretical benefits of the Mastodon pilot are clear, and it fits well with the values (pdf, in English) that SURF wants to promote. Now its time to see what this future will actually bring.