Let’s be honest here, what is the main purpose of your time when scrolling through Twitter? Is it meticulously reading the upcoming news about voting elections? Probably not. Is it scrolling through the infinite waves of memes about anything that faces interest on the surface of Twitter? Probably so. On October 27, 2022, Elon musk officially purchased twitter for $44 billion dollars. He is now facing a rebellion from users due to major misinformation and hate speech that rose on Twitter. Recently, Elon Musk posted tweets regarding negative comments about a social media application named “Mastodon” before deleting them. Now, here’s the question, why would one of the top 5 richest people on earth, who own a billion-dollar company, target such a small known media application?
Mastodon
Mastodon was created in 2016 by software developer Eugen Rochko, whose aim is to create a “free open source decentralised media platform”. The media application’s name was inspired by the extinction of mammals and elephants. Mastodon’s ‘unique-selling point’ as a social media is that it collects hundreds of active social networks around the world connected by Mastodon’s technology. With those linked servers, you can sign up to a specific server, each with its own regulations made by whoever set it up. You can also create your own servers, with personalized regulations and topics of choice of your interest for others to join and discuss. In addition, you can follow multiple servers that interest you. Quite a bit of user has fled the Twitter platform to experience life under the Mastodon platform. Mastodon attained over 450,000+ user’s in less than two weeks, with an active community of 1+ million users, according to CNN (Huang, 2022). This was frankly the reason why Elon Musk went on to form his tweets. For comparison, there are reported 206+ million active users in late 2022 (Shepard, 2022).
What’s Similar?
- Posting – Posting “toots” through Mastodon is basically the same for Twitter, however, you have in total of 500 characters to write down whatever is on your mind. Moreover, you have more control over who can view your posts. The trending hashtag’s on Mastodon are basically identical to Twitter.
- Layout – the user interface for Mastodon and Twitter is pretty much the same, however, a little more complex due to having multiple servers for users to browse instead of one.
Now, as a non-active Twitter user, I have decided to join the trend and try out Mastodon myself. I wanted to experience what the hype was all about. Let’s say, as much as I don’t like using Twitter for daily use, Mastodon has created such a difficult time utilizing its features. Here are my personal reasons;
Opinions
First and foremost, finding the users of the application is a struggle. I dislike the fact that it’s basically a hassle to find friends among the servers I followed. Finding friends within the servers is easy, but among different servers, it’s practically impossible. I refuse to believe how new users can find other user’s without having a complete manual of how to use Mastodon. Social media platforms are supposed to be easy to use, not a puzzling case to solve.
Secondly, creating your own servers is more complicated. Making one according to CNN, you need to host it yourself, it is required to have a website, a virtual computer system connected to the internet, and an email provider. Additionally, you are required to install security protocols and programming languages. These requirements take time to make and for users like myself, I don’t see a reason to waste my time on things like this.
Adding a spotlight for users who tried Mastodon, also have relatively similar thoughts when using the platform. “It wasn’t easy and intuitive”, and “it was very boring there, and very smug”, according to the feedback made by frequent social media users.
To synthesize all this information, Mastodon is considered to be an alternative use for Twitter, after billionaire Elon Musk publicly announced his negativity towards Mastodon. New features of the social media application appear to intrigue new-coming users, as a 400,000 active-user increase boosted the company’s brand image over the weeks. As a curious person, I have decided to try out the application myself, and overall generated more negative feedback than positive. As for my final words, I believe that Mastodon and any other twitter-related applications won’t be going anywhere anytime soon based on user feedback.
But I am interested in your opinions on Mastodon. Have you tried it? How do you feel about it? If so, please describe your experience in the comments, I would love to hear your thoughts about such an application!
Bibliography:
Huang, Kalley. “What Is Mastodon and Why Are People Leaving Twitter for It?” The New York Times, 7 Nov. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/11/07/technology/mastodon-twitter-elon-musk.html. Accessed 8 Nov. 2022.
Shepard, Jack. “22 Essential Twitter Statistics You Need to Know in 2022.” TheSocialShepard, 5 Nov. 2022, thesocialshepherd.com/blog/twitter-statistics#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20Twitter%20sees%20about,what%20others%20are%20tweeting%20about. Accessed 8 Nov. 2022.