From firing nearly half of Twitter's workforce to charging a monthly fee for the coveted blue tick, Elon Musk has made several unprecedented moves since taking control of the microblogging platform. These changes have not gone down well with many long-term Twitter users who have now started to leave the platform fearing what might come next from the new boss.
Amid this Twitter turmoil, an application named Mastodon has witnessed an influx of users. The open-source microblogging platform has emerged as the new alternative to Twitter and has given refuge to anyone sulking over the changes.
What is Mastodon?
Like Twitter, Mastodon too is a mircoblogging platform, but open-source. This means that the application doesn't function in a centralised manner but instead has a number of different user-managed servers. The app describes itself as the “largest decentralized social network on the internet” where independent communities can interact with each other.
Mastodon has features similar to Twitter and allows users to tag each other, follow other accounts, and share media.
Why the migration?
Many verified Twitter users are unwilling to shell out the $8 monthly fee to retain their blue tick. Earlier, the blue tick was given to active, notable, and authentic Twitter accounts of public interest. Now anyone who pays the fee can get the verified badge next to their name. This caused confusion among the users and even led to a surge in fake accounts on Twitter. Recently, some users on the platform misused this feature to impersonate popular personalities by creating an account in their name and buying the blue badge.
Many think that Twitter might undergo more changes in the coming days now that Elon Musk has taken over. The billionaire, in his recent tweet, even said, “Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & change what doesn't.”
While the moderation policies are controlled by Twitter for all users on the platform, Mastodon works differently. Each server on Mastodon has its own rules and regulations and the moderation strategy is decided by the admins of the servers. While one server may allow something, other may not. This makes Mastodon more flexible for users who can freely decide the server they want to join.
