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The decentralized social network Mastodon is still on the rise.
The Twitter alternative Mastodon is booming. Since Elon Musk (51) took power at competitor Twitter, the number of users of the news service with the elephant logo has almost increased quintupled.
Over 2 million people are already actively using Mastodon every month. A total of over 7.5 million users are already registered. Blick shows why Mastodon is more than just a Twitter 2.0.
The “Musk Problem”
The first reason is obvious and is in the media every day: Elon Musk. The eccentric billionaire has alienated users and employees alike since his takeover.
Half of the 7,500 employees were fired and 62,000 blocked, often questionable user accounts were reactivated. One of the beneficiaries of the action: Ex-President Donald Trump (76), who is allowed to tweet again, but no longer wants to.
Advertisers are now running away from Musk. This is sometimes due to the reactivated accounts. Because anyone who places advertising on Twitter does not know where it is being displayed. And nobody wants to see their advertising placed next to profiles of, for example, racist and inflammatory conspiracy theorists.
A part of something bigger
The decentralized «Fediverse», of which Mastodon is a part, benefits from not having a polarizing leader. And probably never will get one. Because Mastodon is as good as unsellable due to its decentralized structure.
As a member of Fediverse, the Mastodon user can also join a variety of other networks with their login. The latest member is the social network Tumblr with over 450 million users worldwide. The aim of Fediverse is to build a decentralized network that is as independent as possible from billionaires and large technology groups.
Less “viral madness”
But probably the greatest advantages for the user arise from two innovations. On the one hand the lack of an algorithm and on the other hand the “private likes”. Because the platform works completely without an ordering algorithm, you can always see the latest posts in real time. This has two advantages: the user is not patronized and you can easily see the posts of people he follows in chronological order.
The like function is also different. Instead of liking, you favorite a post on Mastodon. However, this is only visible to the person who created the post and to the Liker himself. In other words, you can’t see how many likes or “favorites” a post has received. In a world of “viral” madness and wild hunts for likes and clicks, a welcome deceleration.
Furthermore, Mastodon is ad-free, has no app trackers that unintentionally collect user data and is constantly being improved thanks to open software. So there’s a lot to be said for the newcomer to the world of social media.