Musk Effect: Thousands Leave Twitter & Join Mastodon; Know About Emerging Platform

New York: Elon Musk has been making sweeping changes in Twitter and sacking employees left, right and centre since taking over the company 10 days ago.

The world’s richest person has managed to put off a huge number of users as well, who are leaving the micro-blogging platform and seeking alternatives.

The biggest beneficiary of this ‘exodus’ is Mastodon, reported CNN.

Not many may have heard of this social media platform in these parts of the world, but it has been around since 2016.

Surge In Users

Also based in the US, Mastodon has seen a significant surge in its user base.

BBC, quoting Mastodon team members, reported that 230,000 people joined the platform next week, taking the total number of users to over 655,000.

What Is Mastodon?

Created by Eugen Rochko in 2016, Mastodon is an open-source microblogging alternative to Twitter, wrote Android Police. It doesn’t function in a centralised manner but has numerous independent and user-managed servers.

The servers are classified according to location, city or interest, according to the BBC. All users, however, can interact freely with others.

The Mascot

The mascot/symbol of the platform resembles a mastodon or a mammoth elephant-like large extinct mammal with a trunk.

The Motto

“At Mastodon, we present a vision of social media that cannot be bought and owned by any billionaire. Your ability to communicate online should not be at the whims of a single commercial company!” the platform posted recently, referring to Musk’s takeover of Twitter.

How Does It Work

Mastodon works almost like Twitter, where users can tag other users, share media and follow other accounts. The only feature which differentiates the two microblogging platforms are independent servers.

Toots vs Tweets

Messages posted in Mastodon are known as ‘toots’ – almost rhyming with tweets.

Is There Moderation?

All servers have their moderation rules, according to BBC. Servers can block others if hate speech is being propagated and posts can be reported to server owners.