Not long after Elon Musk closed a deal to buy Twitter on October 27 and fired management, users have been reconsidering the platform.
Hashtags #TwitterMigration and #TwitterExodus are gaining popularity, and the most common name associated with it is Mastodon – the new home of fleeing tweeters.
In truth, Mastodon isn’t that new. In the year It was launched in October 2016 by German software developer Eugene Rochko, inspired by complaints about Twitter and concerns about the platform’s centralized control.
In the year After his 15 minutes of fame in early 2017, Mastodon’s growth slowed to a crawl.
Now, it’s up and down again – More than 70,000 The day after Musk’s Twitter deal was announced, users joined the network. As of this writing, Mastodon has reached over one million active users with nearly half a million new users as of October 27th.
Meanwhile, Twitter was losing its most active users from its 238 million strong user base even before Musk acquired the platform.
How hard is it to sign up to Mastodon?
Signing up on the network takes just a few minutes, just like any other social media app. However, Mastodon is not a Twitter clone – you need to choose a server to join.
Servers are divided by topic and location and should bring users together with a common interest. The server is also where your account resides, so your account name will be nickname@server-name (more on this later).
There are currently just over 4,000 servers. Some are closed to enrollment because they have reached capacity or simply choose to downsize their community. For example, Mastodon’s main server mastodon.social is not currently accepting new members.
After joining the server of your choice and registering, the interface resembles Twitter, with shorter posts (up to 500 characters by default) called “toots” instead of “tweets”. Considering the recent growth in popularity, the app may be slow to respond as some servers experience heavy loads.
For those looking for a relatively seamless transition without losing their online community, there’s a set of Twitter migration tools for finding your followers and following them on Mastodon.
There is also a tool to paste between the two.
OK, so why does Mastodon have servers?
Mastodon is not a platform, but a decentralized network of servers. This means that no central authority owns and manages the entire communication platform (which is the opposite of Musk who has Twitter and can change his mind about how to operate the platform at any time).
When you join a server, what you post will appear in that server. To some extent, your content may also appear on the Mastodon network, subject to the policies of other servers you join.
This is in stark contrast to Twitter, where everything you tweet is available to all Twitter users, unless your account is reserved for followers only.
The point of choosing a server on Mastodon is to connect locally with the policy you choose and the community you like. Each server may have its own code of conduct and moderation policy. Individual server administrators can block users and other servers from accessing and posting content.
In addition, all servers form part of an interconnected network called FedEx. Fediverse can include any social media application that uses decentralized principles like Mastodon. This means that users in the federation can follow each other between servers.
Is Mastodon safe? What about moderation?
In principle, decentralization can ensure greater freedom of speech, which is one of the main concerns users have about the future of Twitter.
Twitter offers transparent AI-based algorithms that choose what you see on your feed. Mastodon displays posts in chronological order.
Without a central authority, you may worry that there will be complete chaos as people post dangerous and offensive content.
However, thanks to community moderation, most servers hold users to a higher standard, and can easily block or filter hate speech, illegal content, racism, discrimination against marginalized groups, and more. In the year In 2017, Vice journalist Sarah Jeong called it “Twitter without Nazis”.
Community moderation has shown its power: when the far-right forum GAB moved to Mastodon in 2019, many servers on the network blocked it without a central point. While he may still be using Mastodon’s code, Gab doesn’t seem to be part of Fediverse anymore.
Is Mastodon the new Twitter?
In general, Mastodon is neither a replacement nor a decentralized copy of Twitter – the presence of individual servers makes it fundamentally different from any other social media platform.
As an open-source, decentralized network, Mastodon appeals to young, tech-savvy users, and it’s no surprise that many find Mastodon a welcome upgrade to Twitter.
Additionally, free speech seekers, another group worried about central authority censorship, may find a new home there. For now, it’s too soon to tell which user groups will be most active and how big Mastodon will become.
- Natalia Ilyushina, Research Fellow, RMIT University
This article is reprinted from the discussion under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
