Javascript. Ick!
1. Not all the Fediverse hosts use javascript, you can always find another.
2. while the web interface is the preferred way, there are clients for all platforms. Several are excellent, although they do not have all of the power and options of the web interface they have enough.
I have clients for Android and Linux currently installed. These clients bypass the javascript tricks so you need not deal with them.

I searched for the title and found the post quoted on Twitter.
*shrug*

FYI: multiple public service, progressive, other liberal, and humanitarian aid accounts have been blind-blocked, removed, and all of their followers removed. Many of these had said bad things about Trump three or four years ago, but that is the only thing (other than being in support of humanitarian projects or not conservative) that they seem to have in common. None of them received any official notice from or on Twitter.

No one seems to really KNOW what is going on, but it looks like the Musk version of "free speech" may be a factor.
Still watching to see if we can figure this out.

FYI: My Twitter account was set up to only allow my machines to submit a tweet on errors as an alert mechanism, and I have never personally posted a tweet. My account is still there, but no longer checked. Until today, when I heard about this issue.
Family members have started finding my account on Mastodon, if only to ensure we maintain online communication.

It seems that people aren't keen to stick around any more... The place is destined to become an echo chamber.

As for me, I have never used "social media." Even in the earliest days of "IRC = Internet Relay Chat," I was never a chatterbox.

Full Disclosure: There is no television in my house, and there hasn't been one in thirty years. But every room is lined with bookshelves. On the rare occasion when I want to watch video, I buy it on-line or on DVD and watch it commercial-free. (I have no idea why "broadcasting" survives ...)

I'm not a Luddite – "it's just not my thing." As you know, I participate very regularly on forums like this one, which are specific to areas of specific personal or professional interest to me.

And I am always grateful to the "moderators" who work behind the scenes to keep the air clear. (I found that I could not stand to be one, however ...) "Here's a rose ..." @>-+---

Oh man! I really hate to burst your bubble, but LQ is Social Media. Arguably one of the only FEW really GOOD Social Media sites, but it definitely fits the definition.

Of course you are not "busting" anything. I like to talk with like-minded people(?) about subjects of general interest – and then to participate in things like "mega threads" – but it is much more closed and, if I may suggest, far more civilized.

So you're saying that it's nice to hang around here, even though there are limits on your speech?

Perhaps those limits are precisely what keeps intelligent, civilised, like-minded people interested in visiting this site. Now that's food for thought...

Yes, LQ is a form of social media.

And yet there are a lot of posts beefing about people who use it as such! They usually start from the premise that this is primarily a technical help site and that some people are abusing it by posting mostly in General and not in the technical forums.

There is nothing about it being a place for technical help or questions that makes it no longer qualify as "social media". This is a technical question (re: Linux) social media site. Three are others, although this one is my favorite.

The difference with Mastodon is that it is more of a social network than any kind of site. What you find there might be anything you might find on any social media site, including technical help. You are unlikely to find adds, viral content, runaway memes, and other abstractions that reduce value and obscure useful information on Mastodon. But then, the same can be said of a social media site that is better moderated because it is not about the money! What kills social media sites is the runaway capitalism behind them.

Haven't we been here before?

Arguing over whether something fits within the fuzzy boundaries of what is or isn't "social media" is as stupid and unnecessary as the term itself.

In most cases one can always simply refer to "online" or "on the Internet" or whatever, and the point is made.

If there is a need to be more specific, name the particular type (e.g. forum, chatroom, microblogging, etc) or technology (e.g. vBulletin, IRC, Mastodon, etc) or instance/community (e.g. LQ, Freenode, fosstodon, etc) - if none of those things are relevant, see previous paragraph.

Perhaps, but you have to call it SOMETHING!

I guess we can agree that the answer to the question "Has anyone here used Mastodon?" is "Yes, anyone here HAS used Mastodon!" and we can move on.

Are there? I can't recall ever seeing anything like that.