Mastodon, an open-source, decentralized alternative to X (formerly Twitter), is rolling out new features to make the app more appealing to users who use it to get news and information from writers and journalists. Starting Tuesday, the company will add clickable author signatures to link posts, directing Mastodon users to the author's account on the Fediverse (if active), helping journalists get more exposure and grow their following.
The new signature goes beyond the typical @username reference that often accompanies link posts from news publications or links to other written content on WordPress blogs, Substack, etc. Instead, the change displays the headline and image of the news publication, followed by another reference below that includes the author's profile photo and name.
Image credit: Mastodon
The feature is already rolling out to select news publishers, including The Verge, MacStories, and MacRumors (and we hear TechCrunch is in the process as well!).
To access these new bylines, for the time being, you must use the main Mastodon server at mastodon.social on the web or the official mobile app. If you use a different Mastodon server, it must support the latest Mastodon nightly release, but this feature will only work on moderator-approved websites.
The company says the new signing features will also be supported by its API, allowing third-party apps to support the additional functionality in the future.
On the backend, Mastodon says the innovation driving this feature is a new kind of OpenGraph tag — the same kind of tag that's set on websites that helps determine the type of thumbnail image that appears next to a page preview when it's shared to Mastodon, iMessage, Discord, and other services.
This tag is “” This is extremely easy to implement as it only takes one simple line of code to add to your site.
Handles in tags can refer to any Fediverse account, not just Mastodon, meaning accounts on Flipboard, Threads, WordPress (with the ActivityPub plugin installed), PeerTube, Pixelfed, etc. Additionally, according to Mastodon, handles do not need to start with an at sign (@) to work.
There is one caveat though – in the case of co-authors, only the first author is shown as multiple authors are not yet supported, however this may be addressed in a future release.
Mastodon said it plans to propose a draft specification for other ActivityPub platforms in the coming weeks.
The addition of tags may encourage more journalists to increase their use of federated social networks, as it helps increase their exposure. The Fediverse has over 10 million users, excluding Threads (which has 170 million monthly users but is not fully federated). Mastodon in particular has around 804,000 monthly active users.