I'm checking out Mastodon because I want to find a social media platform that doesn't have a financial incentive to steer me to content, and that is not filled with flame wars. But I don't really understand how best to navigate the Fediverse to find high-quality content. A lot of people here post links to Twitter, which just lands me back in the cesspool that I'm trying to avoid.
Actually, I'm not sure why I'm here, because this just seems like a Twitter replacement, and I've never tweeted before. I'm mostly a Facebook user, but I don't like how Facebook is able to get me addicted to scrolling. Or perhaps the point is that I'm addicted to information, and predictable enough that algorithms find it easy to get me hooked, so I need to find a safe place to engage in my addiction?
A hint I can give is that the Fediverse (of which Mastodon is part) uses hashtags heavily for finding content. So you could search for topics you're interested in with hashtags.
You could also browse the local timeline and the federated timeline
You could also post an introduction of yourself with topics you're interested in, add hashtags of the keywords.
Mastodon (and other Fediverse servers) do not rely on algorithms, so you'll have to get active to find a nice list of people to follow. Maybe check out the followfridays or ff tags as well to get some more ideas.
If you find somebody you want to follow, check their followers too, maybe there's yet another like-minded individual you can follow.
This way the network spreads out slowly and naturally.
Welcome to Qoto and the Fediverse!
