The news that Elon Musk intends to take over Twitter has prompted even more people to investigate Mastodon, a competing social networking service.
Mastodon Founder Eugen Rochko shared a snapshot on Thursday indicating that user sign-ups at the Mastodon. social server spiked just hours after Musk revealed his plan to purchase Twitter for $41 billion. The increase is far larger than the first spike Mastodon experienced after Musk said he was buying a share in Twitter over a week ago.
It's worth noting, though, that Mastodon is a decentralized social network similar to email. As a result, Rochko only gets access to the Mastodon. social server's user sign-up statistics. Nonetheless, he believes that other servers on the network are experiencing a surge in new customers.
Some users are undoubtedly migrating to Mastodon because they are concerned that Musk will make significant changes to Twitter. Musk stated in a TED Talk on Thursday that he wants Twitter's content control to be relaxed.
"I believe we want to be, but we're hesitant to erase stuff." Just be cautious when it comes to permanent bans. During the interview, he stated, "You know, time-outs would be preferable to these lifetime bans."
Musk did not elaborate on how he plans to control hate speech and misinformation on social media sites. However, he wants Twitter to put free expression and transparency first. This will entail making Twitter's content algorithms open source.
Meanwhile, Mastodon has resorted to Twitter to oppose Musk's attempt to acquire the social media platform. "At Mastodon, we propose a vision of social media that no billionaire can buy and own." It added in a tweet, "Your capacity to speak online should not be at the whims of a single commercial enterprise!"
Despite the addition of new members, Mastodon remains a modest social network when compared to Twitter, which has 217 million daily active users. According to Rochko's calculations, Mastodon has roughly 250,000 monthly active users out of 3 million registered members.