Should you join Mastodon? Here's what you need to know

In the days before and after Elon Musk officially took over Twitter, many users of the social media platform saw their follower count plummet, a drop that has continued as more and more users jump ship from Twitter.

People are concerned about the billionaire's management of the site, including confusion about blue checks and verification, a potential financial cost, and the fears that hate speech, abuse and misinformation will flourish under Musk's stewardship. Massive and sudden layoffs at Twitter, including the firing of employees responsible for accessibly and security, have done little to assuage fears about the platform and its future.

Some Twitter users have picked up their handles and gone to an alternative social media platform, Mastodon — so many, in fact, that Wired reports the abrupt uptick has "overrun" Mastodon servers. "As Twitter has a public meltdown, Mastodon is having a quieter one," according to Wired, which describes the site's servers as "overloaded with the fury of new activity, and volunteer administrators of the more than 4,000 instances, or servers, cannot keep up with new user requests to join and the volume of posts." Wired also notes Mastodon has "a steep learning curve."

What is this site, why are people flocking to it (including some Salon staff members) and is it worth it? Salon digs into the social media site named for an extinct animal but with very modern ideals.

History and intent

Mastodon was launched in 2016, created by German software developer Eugen Rochko. From the beginning, it was designed to be a decentralized social network with strict policies against abuse and discrimination. If this sounds exactly like some of the things Twitter is missing (the very things that some Twitter users fear will worsen under Musk), it's for a reason. Rochko began developing Mastodon in his early 20s specifically "after becoming disillusioned with Twitter," according to TIME.

He told the magazine, "I was thinking that being able to express myself online to my friends through short messages was very important to me, important also to the world, and that maybe it should not be in the hands of a single corporation."

Mastodon does not have Twitter's one central platform. Instead, it's compromised of many, independently run servers, each with their own (volunteer) moderators and rules, though you can communicate with users on different servers. Crowdfunded by Patreon, Mastodon is a nonprofit and anyone can start their own server. Rochko told TIME his creation of Mastodon "was generally related to a feeling of distrust of the top down control that Twitter exercised."

Mastodon's single employee so far? Rochko.

A press release on the Mastodon homepage heralds "a vision of social media that cannot be bought and owned by any billionaire, and [we] strive to create a more resilient global platform without profit incentives. We believe that your ability to communicate online should not be at the whims of a single commercial company."

Pros

The site is free and has no advertising, marking it as notably different from Twitter. The micro-blogging at Mastodon is also a bit longer. Users can write up to 500-character messages (higher than Twitter's usual 280-character limit) and can also include polls, images and videos, similar to Twitter. There is boosting, similar to retweeting, but no quote-8tweeting, which on Twitter could often lead to pile-ons.

Hashtags are apparently big on Mastodon, like the Twitter days of yore, as is pinning an introductory post, giving the site a more social feel. Users appear to be using content warnings more than on Twitter and it's easier to filter certain topics out.

Former or current Twitter users may also celebrate that Mastodon lists posts in reverse chronological order, not based on a nebulous and ever-shifting algorithm that sites like Twitter and Facebook use.  As Slate writes, Mastodon has "all the best parts of the bird app (fun and informative microblogging, smooth user feeds, room for personal customization) and none of the worst (a bizarre content algorithm, user data collection, weak moderation, loads of far-right trolls)."

Cons

But Mastodon is open source, which means its original code can be used by anyone and changed by anyone, including working on bugs, translating the interface and contributing new features. It also means Mastodon has no control over who does what. The New York Times reports, "right-wing social networks Gab and Truth Social have used Mastodon's code, which the company opposed. Mastodon has acknowledged that being free and open source means giving up the ability to choose who can use it."

Because of the way it's designed, Mastodon also has no rules for posts or comment moderation. As The New York Times puts it, "Mastodon does not have the ability to make its users, or the people who create servers, do anything."

How-to

To join, you sign up for an account on a server, which seems simple enough, except there are over 4,000. It's more overwhelming than choosing a lunch table in a school cafeteria. Many servers are organized by theme, like "metalhead.club" which describes itself as "Focused on metal music content, hosted in Germany and powered by 100% green energy." One bills itself as the "Belgian Pirate Party." Or maybe you'd like "a place for animation professionals." Some servers are full and many are overrun, with (volunteer, remember) moderators unable to keep up with new requests.

Sign-up seems to be an area where some potential users are running into problems, likely linked to the massive exodus to the site. Mastodon itself acknowledges, "Without doubt the sudden and explosive success is putting strain on our resources," and notes "issues such as confirmation e-mails not arriving or home feeds being delayed." Twitter converts also bemoan the lack of an easy way to search. And posts on Mastodon have the unfortunate name "toots," which might be a pro or con for you, personally.

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Probably the best way to think of Mastodon is how The New York Times describes it, "Although Mastodon visually resembles Twitter, its user experience is more akin to that of Discord, a talking and texting app where people also join servers that have their own cultures and rules."

Should you switch to the site? If social media is important to your life or career, it might be a good idea to have a backup plan (or platform or two), though some users, like, Nitish Pahwa writing in Slate, express "doubts that Twitter is nearing an imminent death. I also gotta say," Pahwa writes, "I'm not sure I'll ever get used to the concept of "tooting" something."