Fetching all the various sources you all kindly pointed out, this is a quick and dirty list of all research papers that mention fediverse or mastodon words in their titles ordered by year. There are several authors that have published several papers. It would be awesome to reach them on their mastodon/fediverse accounts. If you know them or you are one of them, poke a mention or reply, i would like to follow you.
(1) Rethinking the “social” in “social media”: Insights into topology, abstraction, and scale on the Mastodon social network [Diana Zulli, Miao Liu & Robert Gehl] (2020) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444820912533?icid=int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.2
(2) Understanding the growth of the Fediverse through the lens of Mastodon [Lucio La Cava, Sergio Greco & Andrea Tagarelli] (2021) https://arxiv.org/pdf/2106.15473
(3) Network Analysis of the Information Consumption-Production Dichotomy inMastodon User Behaviors [Lucio La Cava, Sergio Greco & Andrea Tagarelli] (2022) https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/19391/19163
(4) Moderating the Fediverse: Content Moderation on Distributed Social Media [Alan Z. Rozenshtein] (2022) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4213674
(5) Le Fediverse comme système de médias sociaux alternatifs: conflits de valeurs et design des protocoles informatiques [Chanel Robin, Eva Giard, Stéphane Couture] (2022) https://cirst.uqam.ca/publications/1514/
(6) CHAPTER 12 Emerging Forms of Sociotechnical Organisation: The Case of the Fediverse [Jacopo Anderlini, Carlo Milani] (2022)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv319wpvm.16
(7) Creating a City for All of Us: The Possible Role of the Fediverse in Archiving Civic Urban Memory [Pen Lister] (2023) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44206-024-00137-8
(8) Information Consumption and Boundary Spanning in Decentralized Online Social Networks: the case of Mastodon Users [Lucio La Cava & Andrea Tagarelli] (2023) https://arxiv.org/pdf/2203.15752
(9) Will Admins Cope? Decentralized Moderation in the Fediverse [Ishaku Hassan Anaobi, Aravindh Raman, Ignacio Castro, Haris Bin Zia, Dami Ibosiola & Gareth Tyson] (2023) https://arxiv.org/pdf/2302.05915
(10) The Effects of Group Sanctions on Participation and Toxicity: Quasi-experimental Evidence from the Fediverse [Carl Colglazier, Nathan TeBlunthuis & Aaron Shaw] (2024) https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.02109
(11) An analysis of mastodon adoption dynamics based on instance types [Eduard Sabo, Tim Gesthuizen, Kelvin J. A. Bouma, Dimka Karastoyanova, Mirela Riveni] (2024) https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s13278-024-01341-7.pdf
(12) Decentralised Moderation for Interoperable Social Networks:A Conversation-based Approach for Pleroma and the Fediverse [Vibhor Agarwal, Aravindh Raman, Nishanth Sastry, Ahmed M. Abdelmoniem, Gareth Tyson, Ignacio Castro] (2024) https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/31293/33453
(13) Decentralised Networks as a Tool for Fighting Disinformation and Censorship: The Fediverse and Free, Collaborative and Open Networks [Ramón Salaverría, María-Pilar Martínez-Costa & Clara González Tosat] (2024) https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-63153-5_2
(14) 15 - Moderating the Fediverse. Content Moderation on Distributed Social Media from Part III - Platform Governance [Alan Z. Rozenshtein] (2024) https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/media-and-society-after-technological-disruption/moderating-the-fediverse/A9018A2868DBE98ED59BA66BC6C25913
(15) From Network to Platform to Protocol: Mastodon’s Ethos and the Sociotechnical Imaginary of the Fediverse [Skip de Mönnink] (2024) https://studenttheses.uu.nl/handle/20.500.12932/46353
(16) Closing the Door to Remain Open: The Politics of Openness and the Practices of Strategic Closure in the Fediverse [Jamie A. Theophilos] (2024) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20563051241308323
(17) Privacy Policies on the Fediverse: A Case Study of Mastodon Instances [Emma Tosch, Luis Garcia, Cynthia Li, Chris Martens] (2024) https://doi.org/10.56553/popets-2024-0138
(18) Collaborative Content Moderation in the Fediverse [Haris Bin Zia, Aravindh Raman, Ignacio Castro & Gareth Tyson] (2025) https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.05871
(19) Trust and Friction: Negotiating How Information Flows Through Decentralized Social Media [Sohyeon Hwang, Priyanka Nanayakkara & Yan Shvartzshnaider] (2025) https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.02150
(20) "A Blocklist is a Boundary": Tensions between Community Protection and Mutual Aid on Federated Social Networks [Erika Melder, Ada Lerner, Michael Ann DeVito] (2025) https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3710919
(21) Can This Platform Survive? Governance Challenges for the Fediverse [Thomas Struett, Aram Sinnreich, Patricia Aufderheide & Rob Gehl] (2025) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4598303
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