Decentralized social media platform Mastodon has been exploding in popularity recently. According to one New blog post from its founder and lead developer, Eugene Rychkothe social media platform’s user base grew from 300,000 monthly active users to 2.5 million between the months of October and November (which also happens to be around the time business magnate Elon Musk took over Twitter). .
Ruchko also discussed the now-reversed ban on sharing Mastodon links on his blog. Previous Week, Mastodon’s Twitter account has been suspended. After sharing a link to ElonJet’s newly registered Mastodon account, the account broadcasting the public flight path data of Elon Musk’s private jet. Also, the Twitter accounts of several journalists that Musk accused of posting their “accurate, real-time location” Mastodon even received reports that users were unable to tweet links to any Mastodon servers, including those unrelated to the @ElonJet account.
“It’s a stark reminder that central platforms can impose arbitrary and unfair limits on what you can and can’t say while holding your social graph hostage,” Ruchko said. “At Mastodon, we believe that there should be no middle man between you and your audience and that journalists and government agencies in particular should not rely on a private platform to reach the public.”
They also say that Mastodon’s free and open-source software enables anyone to run a social media platform entirely on their own infrastructure and under their own control. “Not only does this allow organizations like the German government or the European Commission to run their own Mastodon servers where they publish important information that is distributed to their thousands of followers on many different Mastodon servers, but it also gives you this freedom. also provides the ability to choose their own Mastodon servers. Social media provider just as you choose a telephone, Internet, or email provider, and move from one to another while maintaining your followers. “
Mastodon isn’t the only social media platform seeing massive growth lately. According to marketing intelligence firm Sensor Tower, Tumblr has recently seen growth of 96% in the US and 77% worldwide.. Hive also reached one million users about a month ago.
Ruchko says he is optimistic about Mastodon’s future. “Recognizing that freedom of the press is absolutely essential to a functioning democracy, we are excited to see Mastodon grow and become a household name in newsrooms around the world.” He concluded by saying that he and his team are committed to improving their software to meet the challenges that come with rapid growth and increasing demand.
