Status: 10/28/2022 4:57 p.m
After Elon Musk bought Twitter, many users want to switch to little rival Mastodon. What is behind it – and how does the platform differ from Twitter?
After a long back and forth, Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk is now officially taking over the American short message service Twitter. When the purchase was announced in spring, numerous users left the social network. And even today, farewell statements from users can be read on Twitter. Quite a few of them are currently moving towards another short message service: Mastodon. The company, which bears the name of a primeval animal – a mammoth relative – is considered a Twitter alternative. Mastodon is therefore “trumpeted” – and not “tweeted” like on Twitter, whose logo is adorned with a small bird.
What is behind Mastodon – and is the service really the better Twitter? The microblogging service was launched in 2016 by the Jena developer Eugen Rochko. The surface of the network is initially reminiscent of Twitter: there is a timeline with posts from accounts that you follow, hashtags and followers. Contributions in the form of text, images or videos can be posted, liked and shared there. Instead of hearts to like, there are asterisks on Mastodon. And instead of the 280 characters that are possible for a tweet, the “Tröts” on Mastodon can be 500 characters long.
Decentralized Network
But there are also some fundamental differences. So there is not only one timeline like on Twitter, but three. Also, you can’t see immediately how many likes a post has received in the timeline. The posts in the Mastodon timelines are also not displayed according to a specific algorithm, but chronologically according to the time of publication.
Why choose Mastodon? “Because it’s decentralized,” writes platform operator Mastodon on Twitter. It is an open source platform that cannot be sold and can go bankrupt.
Unlike Twitter, the Mastodon network is decentralized. Mastodon uses different servers, which the platform itself calls “instances”. These are operated by different organizations or individuals. Anyone who registers on Mastodon must first decide on one of these instances. This type of base or home server can be changed again at any time. The approximately 3700 existing instances, which can also communicate with each other, can also be seen as spaces for specific groups: for example on specific topics such as technology or as local instances for individual federal states.
Still small compared to Twitter
The three timelines on Mastodon are correspondingly different: On the home timeline, users can see posts from all the accounts they follow. In the local timeline you can see posts from the same instance. And on the so-called federated timeline, posts are shared by people with whom your own instance is connected.
Mastodon sees itself as part of “Fediverse”, a network of various social media platforms. IT security expert Mike Kuketz describes the Fediverse in his blog as a “unified universe” in which federated, independent social networks, microblogging services and websites form a common network that puts user freedom first .
Mastodon now has almost 5.6 million accounts: It is tiny compared to Twitter, the US short message service Twitter has more than 390 million users worldwide, even if the number of users who use Twitter daily was around 238 in the second quarter of 2022 million lay.
Gone in a few days?
Wolfgang Schweiger, Professor of Communication Science at the University of Hohenheim, does not believe that there will be a dramatic migration away from Twitter to other platforms, as some now assume. A clear sign of this is that many users are currently not leaving Twitter entirely, but are posting on Mastodon and Twitter at the same time, says Schweiger tagesschau.de. “I think we overestimate the importance of the holder.”
There is little incentive for passive Twitter users to completely change their usage behavior. So Schweiger assumes that the fuss about Twitter will fizzle out in a few days. From his point of view, this is also due to the fact that Musk will probably not change that much – although it is still unclear what exactly the new owner wants. In Musk’s letters to advertisers, however, one would have noticed that he was more of a layman’s perspective.
As long as Elon Musk doesn’t do anything erratic with Twitter, that could also be positive for the platform, says Schweiger. Twitter will probably be a little more liberal in the future than “we would like and imagine”. The sparrows have been whistling from the rooftops for months that former US President Donald Trump will return to Twitter, says Schweiger. One cannot say whether this will bring dramatic changes. However, Schweiger does not believe that Twitter will now become a sharply right-wing platform. In addition, there are regulatory requirements in different markets.
According to Schweiger, the dismissals of the Twitter management by Musk can be seen as a signal of change. Ultimately, however, it is also about the money. You have to know that Twitter has hardly been profitable so far, according to Schweiger. He sees the layoffs more as a signal from Musk to management: You haven’t managed to break even like other platforms. Musk will have to pay attention to reasonable refinancing. Because he does want the advertising customers to stay and is much more entrepreneurial than you might think.
Other platforms
Mastodon is by no means the only platform that sees itself as an alternative to Twitter. This includes the controversial US microblogging network Parler. The rapper Kanye West, with whom the sporting goods manufacturer Adidas recently terminated his collaboration because of anti-Semitic comments, was also blocked from Twitter again this month. West has been repeatedly blocked on the Instagram platform in the past. The musician now wants to take over Parler, which is considered a conservative and right-wing network. There is a basic agreement, the company said. The takeover could therefore be completed this year.
Former US President Donald Trump, whose Twitter account was suspended after the storming of the US Capitol earlier this year, founded the Truth Social platform. However, his return to Twitter could be imminent.
There is also the short message service Gab from the USA, which, like other platforms, has an animal in its logo: a green frog adorns the app, which was founded in 2016. Gab was also accused of giving space to right-wing extremists.