In the wake of Elon Musk’s official Twitter acquisitionHowever, rival social media platform Mastodon has emerged as a new favorite for hordes of people looking to flee Musk’s version of Twitter for greener pastures.
About 70,000 new users joined Mastodon the day after Musk took over Twitter. There is no doubt that Mastodon is specifically designed to not allow primary control of its platform by eccentric billionaire like Elon Musk which is one of the attractions. But other than numbers and PR talking points, what is Mastodon – and is it really the best alternative to Twitter?
On paper, Mastodon is an open source decentralized social media platform that works very similarly to Twitter. You’ll find comparable micro blogging features and can make posts of up to 500 characters – referred to as “toots” instead of “tweets”, which is objectively entertaining. However, there are some obvious ways in which Mastodon differs from Twitter that help it stand out. Most notably, how the platform’s servers work.
Choose your entry point
When you first register with Mastodon, you will find yourself required to select a server. You can choose from broad country-based servers like ‘Australia’ (aus.social), more local regional servers like ‘San Francisco’ (sfba.social), or servers revolving around more specific interests/communities like the friendly Mastodon LGBTQ+. very funny. From a user’s point of view, there is no appreciable difference between which server you choose, so choosing something in your geographic setting makes the most sense.
Mastodon himself describes this server process as being similar to email; For example, while your email domain might be Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, or something else, you can still email anyone, anywhere.
Where mastodon’s decentralized design has an impact is redundancy and network resilience. While Twitter offers one central, privately owned domain – twitter.com – for users to access its service, Mastodon’s bullshit and standalone servers work in concert with each other to keep the network alive.
The founders and developers behind Mastodon consider this to be one of the main selling points of the platform. They argue that without central control, the platform is protected against serving the individual interests of particular people or companies. Mastodon also argues that this makes the platform more cost-effective – which means you don’t have to worry about monetization or profitability.
Long way from critical mass
However, if you’re hoping to follow your favorite celebrity or influencer on Mastodon, you might find it tricky…for now. Unsurprisingly, it appears that popular Twitter users with a large following are in no hurry to ditch the platform just yet, although a few posts including Grey’s Anatomy Shonda Rhimes, actress T Leonie and singer Sarah Bareilles have recently announced They leave the site of the birds.
However, if Elon Musk continues to do so Controversial changes to TwitterAnd the It may only be a matter of time before your favorites switch and start listening to their hearts content.