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Social Sense

Mastodon · 2022-2023

Three servers, no locations

Twitter's corpus came ready-made; Mastodon had to be harvested. The team's scheduler asked three servers for 40 new toots every ten minutes, turned the HTML into text and scored each toot with the same NLTK functions as the tweets, but without stripping hashtags, mentions and links. Toots carry no location, so Mastodon could only be compared by score distributions, not on a map.

Toots harvested by May 2023
1,659,690
757.9 MB across three servers
mastodon.social toots scored
546,919
in the 2023 dashboard
of them scored neutral
78.5%
95% CI 78.4–78.6%; 48% on Twitter
Raw toots re-scored today
594,926
one surviving week, 2-9 May 2023

As published in 2023

Each server has its own mood

These are the histograms the original dashboard showed. mastodon.au and tictoc.social look like Twitter; on mastodon.social almost everything lands on the neutral 5. For income-related toots the servers turn two- or three-humped, which the team read as people either showing off or complaining.

mastodon.social

One of the largest general-purpose instances.

All toots · 546,919

1 · Extremely Negative: 7,731 (1.4%)1.4%12 · Very Strongly Negative: 8,289 (1.5%)1.5%23 · Strongly Negative: 5,038 (0.9%)0.9%34 · Negative: 15,756 (2.9%)2.9%45 · Neutral: 429,414 (78.5%)79%56 · Positive: 20,428 (3.7%)3.7%67 · Strongly Positive: 24,447 (4.5%)4.5%78 · Very Strongly Positive: 19,356 (3.5%)3.5%89 · Extremely Positive: 16,460 (3.0%)3.0%9
Sentiment of all toots on mastodon.social
ScoreCountShare
1 (Extremely Negative)77311.4%
2 (Very Strongly Negative)82891.5%
3 (Strongly Negative)50380.9%
4 (Negative)157562.9%
5 (Neutral)42941478.5%
6 (Positive)204283.7%
7 (Strongly Positive)244474.5%
8 (Very Strongly Positive)193563.5%
9 (Extremely Positive)164603.0%

Income-related toots · 16,829

1 · Extremely Negative: 0 (0.0%)12 · Very Strongly Negative: 7,723 (45.9%)46%23 · Strongly Negative: 0 (0.0%)34 · Negative: 0 (0.0%)45 · Neutral: 40 (0.2%)56 · Positive: 0 (0.0%)67 · Strongly Positive: 3,861 (22.9%)23%78 · Very Strongly Positive: 1,338 (8.0%)8.0%89 · Extremely Positive: 3,867 (23.0%)23%9
Sentiment of income-related toots on mastodon.social
ScoreCountShare
1 (Extremely Negative)00.0%
2 (Very Strongly Negative)772345.9%
3 (Strongly Negative)00.0%
4 (Negative)00.0%
5 (Neutral)400.2%
6 (Positive)00.0%
7 (Strongly Positive)386122.9%
8 (Very Strongly Positive)13388.0%
9 (Extremely Positive)386723.0%

mastodon.au

A server for the Australian community.

All toots · 546,520

1 · Extremely Negative: 11,331 (2.1%)2.1%12 · Very Strongly Negative: 27,363 (5.0%)5.0%23 · Strongly Negative: 16,426 (3.0%)3.0%34 · Negative: 51,299 (9.4%)9.4%45 · Neutral: 232,983 (42.6%)43%56 · Positive: 33,381 (6.1%)6.1%67 · Strongly Positive: 75,399 (13.8%)14%78 · Very Strongly Positive: 46,061 (8.4%)8.4%89 · Extremely Positive: 52,277 (9.6%)9.6%9
Sentiment of all toots on mastodon.au
ScoreCountShare
1 (Extremely Negative)113312.1%
2 (Very Strongly Negative)273635.0%
3 (Strongly Negative)164263.0%
4 (Negative)512999.4%
5 (Neutral)23298342.6%
6 (Positive)333816.1%
7 (Strongly Positive)7539913.8%
8 (Very Strongly Positive)460618.4%
9 (Extremely Positive)522779.6%

Income-related toots · 31,833

1 · Extremely Negative: 0 (0.0%)12 · Very Strongly Negative: 7,781 (24.4%)24%23 · Strongly Negative: 2,878 (9.0%)9.0%34 · Negative: 0 (0.0%)45 · Neutral: 5,075 (15.9%)16%56 · Positive: 2,734 (8.6%)8.6%67 · Strongly Positive: 5,680 (17.8%)18%78 · Very Strongly Positive: 4,278 (13.4%)13%89 · Extremely Positive: 3,407 (10.7%)11%9
Sentiment of income-related toots on mastodon.au
ScoreCountShare
1 (Extremely Negative)00.0%
2 (Very Strongly Negative)778124.4%
3 (Strongly Negative)28789.0%
4 (Negative)00.0%
5 (Neutral)507515.9%
6 (Positive)27348.6%
7 (Strongly Positive)568017.8%
8 (Very Strongly Positive)427813.4%
9 (Extremely Positive)340710.7%

tictoc.social

A general-purpose server ("Mastodon TicToc" in 2023).

All toots · 545,880

1 · Extremely Negative: 40,943 (7.5%)7.5%12 · Very Strongly Negative: 23,608 (4.3%)4.3%23 · Strongly Negative: 21,125 (3.9%)3.9%34 · Negative: 28,227 (5.2%)5.2%45 · Neutral: 182,398 (33.4%)33%56 · Positive: 44,119 (8.1%)8.1%67 · Strongly Positive: 78,303 (14.3%)14%78 · Very Strongly Positive: 54,445 (10.0%)10.0%89 · Extremely Positive: 72,712 (13.3%)13%9
Sentiment of all toots on tictoc.social
ScoreCountShare
1 (Extremely Negative)409437.5%
2 (Very Strongly Negative)236084.3%
3 (Strongly Negative)211253.9%
4 (Negative)282275.2%
5 (Neutral)18239833.4%
6 (Positive)441198.1%
7 (Strongly Positive)7830314.3%
8 (Very Strongly Positive)5444510.0%
9 (Extremely Positive)7271213.3%

Income-related toots · 61,520

1 · Extremely Negative: 80 (0.1%)12 · Very Strongly Negative: 2,324 (3.8%)3.8%23 · Strongly Negative: 3,188 (5.2%)5.2%34 · Negative: 2,954 (4.8%)4.8%45 · Neutral: 17,487 (28.4%)28%56 · Positive: 4,611 (7.5%)7.5%67 · Strongly Positive: 7,742 (12.6%)13%78 · Very Strongly Positive: 5,849 (9.5%)9.5%89 · Extremely Positive: 17,285 (28.1%)28%9
Sentiment of income-related toots on tictoc.social
ScoreCountShare
1 (Extremely Negative)800.1%
2 (Very Strongly Negative)23243.8%
3 (Strongly Negative)31885.2%
4 (Negative)29544.8%
5 (Neutral)1748728.4%
6 (Positive)46117.5%
7 (Strongly Positive)774212.6%
8 (Very Strongly Positive)58499.5%
9 (Extremely Positive)1728528.1%

Re-scored

A week of mastodon.social, run through the original code again

CouchDB is gone, but 595 thousand raw toots from 2-9 May 2023 survived on the author's drive. Re-scoring them with the unchanged 2023 functions gives a broader spread than the dashboard showed: 61% neutral instead of 79%. The two samples are different toots from different weeks, so this is a consistency check, not a correction.

All toots

594,926 re-scored · outline: 2023 dashboard

1 · Extremely Negative: 16,744 (2.8%)2.8%12 · Very Strongly Negative: 19,938 (3.4%)3.4%23 · Strongly Negative: 34,093 (5.7%)5.7%34 · Negative: 27,421 (4.6%)4.6%45 · Neutral: 361,042 (60.7%)61%56 · Positive: 34,382 (5.8%)5.8%67 · Strongly Positive: 44,587 (7.5%)7.5%78 · Very Strongly Positive: 33,035 (5.6%)5.6%89 · Extremely Positive: 23,684 (4.0%)4.0%9← NegativeNeutralPositive →
2023 dashboard (different sample)
Re-scored mastodon.social toots compared with the 2023 histogram
ScoreCountShare2023 dashboard (different sample) share
1 (Extremely Negative)167442.8%1.4%
2 (Very Strongly Negative)199383.4%1.5%
3 (Strongly Negative)340935.7%0.9%
4 (Negative)274214.6%2.9%
5 (Neutral)36104260.7%78.5%
6 (Positive)343825.8%3.7%
7 (Strongly Positive)445877.5%4.5%
8 (Very Strongly Positive)330355.6%3.5%
9 (Extremely Positive)236844.0%3.0%

Income-related toots

31,398 toots (5.3% of all)

1 · Extremely Negative: 1,574 (5.0%)5.0%12 · Very Strongly Negative: 1,786 (5.7%)5.7%23 · Strongly Negative: 2,226 (7.1%)7.1%34 · Negative: 2,127 (6.8%)6.8%45 · Neutral: 9,974 (31.8%)32%56 · Positive: 2,691 (8.6%)8.6%67 · Strongly Positive: 3,404 (10.8%)11%78 · Very Strongly Positive: 3,534 (11.3%)11%89 · Extremely Positive: 4,082 (13.0%)13%9← NegativeNeutralPositive →
Re-scored income-related toots
ScoreCountShare
1 (Extremely Negative)15745.0%
2 (Very Strongly Negative)17865.7%
3 (Strongly Negative)22267.1%
4 (Negative)21276.8%
5 (Neutral)997431.8%
6 (Positive)26918.6%
7 (Strongly Positive)340410.8%
8 (Very Strongly Positive)353411.3%
9 (Extremely Positive)408213.0%

Crime-related toots

8,623 toots (1.4% of all)

1 · Extremely Negative: 2,000 (23.2%)23%12 · Very Strongly Negative: 1,587 (18.4%)18%23 · Strongly Negative: 1,109 (12.9%)13%34 · Negative: 721 (8.4%)8.4%45 · Neutral: 2,018 (23.4%)23%56 · Positive: 345 (4.0%)4.0%67 · Strongly Positive: 402 (4.7%)4.7%78 · Very Strongly Positive: 239 (2.8%)2.8%89 · Extremely Positive: 202 (2.3%)2.3%9← NegativeNeutralPositive →
Re-scored crime-related toots
ScoreCountShare
1 (Extremely Negative)200023.2%
2 (Very Strongly Negative)158718.4%
3 (Strongly Negative)110912.9%
4 (Negative)7218.4%
5 (Neutral)201823.4%
6 (Positive)3454.0%
7 (Strongly Positive)4024.7%
8 (Very Strongly Positive)2392.8%
9 (Extremely Positive)2022.3%

Toots per hour, and how they scored

UTC hours. Gaps are pauses in the harvest (most visibly 6-8 May), not quiet periods; the line skips hours with fewer than 50 toots.

02,0004,0006,0008,00010,00012,0004.04.44.85.22 May3 May4 May5 May6 May7 May8 May9 MayToots per hour (bars)Mean score (line)

A caveat in the method

VADER only speaks English

The lexicon behind every score is English. Japanese, Chinese and Korean toots match almost no words and fall to neutral, which helps explain mastodon.social's big central spike. German looks gloomy for a different reason: common words such as die ("the"), war ("was") and hell ("bright") are strongly negative English entries. German toots average 4.19 against 5.39 for English.

Share of toots scored neutral, by declared language

  • English (339,498)45.2%45.1–45.4%
  • Undeclared (58,130)86.2%86.0–86.5%
  • Japanese (49,412)98.3%98.1–98.4%
  • German (42,888)57.5%57.0–58.0%
  • Chinese (20,523)96.1%95.8–96.3%
  • French (18,920)75.4%74.8–76.1%
  • Spanish (17,293)71.2%70.6–71.9%
  • Dutch (10,892)72.1%71.2–72.9%
  • Italian (6,661)74.3%73.2–75.3%
  • Portuguese (5,739)72.6%71.4–73.7%
  • Czech (3,114)88.5%87.3–89.5%
  • Korean (2,529)98.3%97.8–98.8%

Mean score by language (5 = neutral)

  • English5.395.38–5.39
  • Undeclared5.015.01–5.02
  • Japanese5.025.02–5.02
  • German4.194.17–4.20
  • Chinese5.025.01–5.03
  • French4.994.98–5.01
  • Spanish4.864.84–4.87
  • Dutch4.894.87–4.91
  • Italian5.165.14–5.19
  • Portuguese4.874.84–4.90
  • Czech4.934.90–4.95
  • Korean5.015.00–5.02

Under each value: a 95% interval (Wilson for the share, t-based for the mean, toots treated as independent). With thousands of toots per language the intervals are a fraction of a point wide, so gaps such as English against Japanese or German against English are not sampling noise; they come from the English-only lexicon.

The 2023 harvester stored each toot's declared language but scored every toot regardless. The same applies to tweets. Try German text on the pipeline page.