Apply for a Certified.Social Account
What is Certified.Social™?
Certified.Social is a specialized and exclusive fee-based and membership-capped server on the Mastodon social network (if you don’t know quite what that is, we’ll explain it to you here). Our clients are high-profile individuals and small bands/groups who need a verified and protected social media presence on Mastodon. Certified.Social is a moderated server with firm but fair standards regarding the conduct of and content posted by our clients.
Who Are Certified.Social’s Clients?
Certified.Social clients are the sorts of individuals regularly referred to in the press as celebrities, stars, cultural icons, bestsellers, champions, public intellectuals, and tastemakers. We accept as clients a limited and exclusive group of individuals who’ve reached the top of their fields in the worlds of performing arts, music, fine arts, literature, professional athletics, design, academia, and more. Our clients have usually already amassed a large following on legacy social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
Certified.Social was founded in recognition that these individuals have special requirements for controlling and verifying their public image and social media identities that apply to the Mastodon social network. Clients are accepted only after rigorous vetting on our part with their representatives and/or business partners. Clients must also fit within the Conduct and Content Standards of this server and community. We strive to become the gold standard in the Mastodon network so that all users understand that members of the Certified.Social server are who they say they are.
Is Certified.Social for Me?
There are a few things to consider as you make your decision to apply for an account on the Certified.Social Mastodon server.
Exclusivity: Certified.Social is designed to provide its account holders with a greater degree of verification, privacy, security, moderation, performance, and value-added concierge service than the average Mastodon server might offer. For this reason, the number of paid accounts on this server is limited to approx. 1200. If you do not need such value-added services or don’t feel that they’re worth paying for, there are plenty of other great free servers for you to join.
Certified.Social reserves the right to reject the application of any prospective client at its own discretion, without explanation to the applicant. However, in line with our core values we feel it is important to note that no application will be rejected solely on the basis of the applicant’s race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious faith, age (beyond legal requirements), disability, etc.
Client Type: Certified.Social is oriented toward serving high-profile individuals or small groups/bands/troupes with large social media followings. Examples of clients who’d find Certified.Social useful are: actors, musicians, bands, authors, professional athletes, public intellectuals, iconic activists, television presenters, on-air talent, etc.
Certified.Social will not accept client applications from active politicians (if an existing client enters politics their account will be suspended) or political parties, consumer brands, government agencies and officials, or NGOs and non-profits; if you are one of those groups or individuals, Certified.Social strongly encourages you to start your own Mastodon server to take advantage of the Fediverse and better serve your particular affinity group (we provide consulting services in this regard on a limited basis).
Fee-Based: Certified.Social charges a flat annual fee for each account on its server. The fee mainly helps keep our server running at the highest level of performance and security possible, pays our hands-on principal and other staff and consultants to give you top-drawer service, and sends funding to the creator and maintainers of the Mastodon open-source software. We have set our initial fee for 2023 at a level that will allow us to sustain this Mastodon server and its mission without being so excessive that prospective clients cannot accommodate them into their budgets. If you are not willing to pay a fee for a Mastodon account, there are certainly many other wonderful and well-run servers that offer free accounts to users.
Certification: Manual verification of an account holder’s identity is an integral part of the value Certified.Social intends to add to the Mastodon Fediverse. In addition to the standard Web-site based “green checkmark” validation, a Certified.Social account will require at least two confidential and discreet attestations by e-mail and/or phone by trusted and reputable parties such as talent representatives, publishers, legal representation, business managers, labels and studios, production companies, academic institutions, speakers’ bureaus, etc. If you do not have such resources or organizations behind you already, Certified.Social is probably not for you.
Language: For moderation and support purposes, Certified.Social is an English-language server. We prefer that our clients post in any variation or dialect of English as standard practice. For users unable or unwilling to do so, there are many excellent servers in the Fediverse that welcome a variety of non-English language posts. If you would like to partner with Certified.Social to create a similar server in your own language we are open to discussion.
Content Moderation: Certified.Social is a heavily moderated server for conduct and content, working in line with the standards of the Mastodon Covenant as well as decades of experience on Internet forums. Before submitting an application via your business representative, we strongly recommend that you personally review our Standards of Conduct and Content for our clients, as many of them may conflict with your own views or personal, professional or business priorities.
Certified.Social welcomes vigorous, funny and occasionally profane expression on the part of its Clients. We welcome our Clients sharing their views on current affair. As much as we respect the important and entertaining role that transgressive comedy plays in society in general, though, prospective clients who primarily define their public personas as “edgy” or “shocking” might find the rules on this server too constricting to let them express themselves.
Self-described “free speech absolutists” and those who regularly express pride their “unpopular” or “contrarian” opinions might also look for another venue to express themselves. Similarly, if a prospective client identifies as right-Libertarian, conservative, Christian Nationalist, far-right, or far-left, or if they support or make excuses for the planet’s more authoritarian regimes, they might find a more welcoming home for their views at another Mastodon server.
While our community philosophy is one of open and respectful discourse and debate and expression, we are not free-speech absolutists and do draw a line at a number of political and ideological positions and unsafe or abusive behaviors. This policy extends to banning individual users from other servers or banning entire servers, usually for allowing content prohibited here or engaging in harassing behavior. Banned servers and users will not see or interact with your content, so it’s up to you if a more limited audience is a trade-off you’re willing to accept.
Performance: Certified.Social strives for the greatest possible server uptime and the fewest delays in delivering its clients’ messages and content to the larger Mastodon Fediverse. If your followers/friends/fans on other social media platform are counted in the hundreds of thousands or millions, you’ll find this Mastodon server doing its utmost to ensure that your voice reaches as many of them as possible (the Fediverse’s infrastructure and our own moderation and federation standards allowing).
Security and Privacy: Certified.Social understands that its clients will require a higher level of privacy and IT security on its Mastodon server to prevent hackers from impersonating or harassing account holders, shutting down the server, stealing sensitive account information, etc. Certified.Social uses HTTPS everywhere and backs up locally and off-site on a minimum daily basis. Working with established security vendors such as Cloudflare as well as implementing rigorous security and privacy best practices on our servers, we strive to protect your identity, personal brand, and user experience on the Mastodon network. Certified.Social is also available to help clients if their Mastodon account is being subjected to harassment.
Additional Services: Certified.Social provides clients with individualized “concierge”-style technical, billing, and security support. We also provide clients with a public page to list all of their official and verified social media accounts and Web sites. If enough clients express an interest, we have plans to host a blog platform to allow clients to post longer-form pieces to which they can link from their Mastodon posts. We are also exploring partnerships for additional fees with third-party newsletter, video streaming, and e-commerce platforms should our clients need them.
Still interested in registering a Certified.Social client account? Please contact us securely via the form below or have an authorized representative fill it out on your behalf. We’ll be in touch to request further information if we feel we can give you the service you need. Please rest assured that all business and personal information submitted to Certified.Social is kept in the strictest confidence and according to our Privacy Policy.
[A special note to business, talent and other representatives: Certified.Social is happy to accept submissions on behalf of multiple clients you represent. However, each Client application is considered separately. If you’d like to submit multiple individuals for consideration we’ll be happy to help you streamline the process.]
Preliminary Application for Certified Social Account
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