Mastodon is a decentralized social network that has grown quite popular as many people are turning to it following Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion.
The platform is increasingly being positioned as an alternative to Twitter. Based on the latest report of The Verge, its user base skyrocketed to 2.5 million monthly active users from just about 300,000. That's between the months of October and November.
Mastodon Exploded in Popularity Following Elon Musk's Acquisition of Twitter
Mastodon's CEO, founder, and lead developer Eugen Rochko wrote in a blog post that more and more journalists, political figures, writers, actors, and organizations are moving over to the platform.
He added that Mastodon has exploded in popularity based on the huge jump in the number of users. As Musk took over Twitter in late October, the big leap in Mastodon's users is almost directly relative to the billionaire's new ownership.
Rochko said that they are excited to see Mastodon grow and eventually become a household name in newsrooms globally.
Likewise, he also said that freedom of the press is absolutely important for a functional democracy.
With this, he added that they are committed to the continuous improvement of their software in order to face up the new challenges that come with rapid growth and growing demand.
Meanwhile, according to TechCrunch, the recent product changes as well as the controversial new ownership of Twitter have contributed to the rapid expansion of Mastodon.
Some users even say that they were concerned about how Twitter's functionality may change under the billionaire's control, and it's the reason why they decided to switch to Mastodon.
On the other hand, others decided to switch as a form of protest against the new verification scheme of the social media platform.
Read Also: Mastodon Has Officially Replaced 'Toot' with 'Publish'
How Does Mastodon Work?
Mastodon has some features similar to that of Twitter like hashtags, bookmarking, replies, and retweet-like "boosting."
However, unlike Twitter, the social network is ad-free. It is also distributed across thousands of servers which are organized around interests and geographic regions. Moreover, the platform is run largely by volunteers.
If you sign up for the platform and selected a server through the web or a mobile client, you will be able to swap posts and links with other users on their own server as well as those on other servers across the network.
Each server has the option to filter out undesirable types of content, such as harassment and gratuitous violence. Similarly, users on any server will be able to block and report others to administrators.
Mastodon was founded in 2016. It was supported through crowdfunding in addition to a small grant from the European Commission.
The only full-time employee of the platform is twenty-five-year-old Rochko. He is programming at his home in Germany on a $2,394.96 monthly salary, according to TechCrunch.
He noted in a recent post that he's been working 12- to 14-hour days in order to keep up with the influx in demand.
There are other platforms that can be a replacement for Twitter. For instance, there's Post, headed up by former Waze CEO Noam Bardin.
Another one is Hive, which just recently relaunched after fixing some security issues. There are also familiar social platforms like Discord, Tumblr, and Reddit.
Related Article: Twitter Blocks Links to Mastodon on Platform, Labels Them 'Harmful'
