Time.news – Since Elon Musk acquired ownership of Twitter, some of its users have migrated to Mastodon, an alternative social platform that boasts around 4.5 million accounts. The New York Times reports it, according to which Mastodon is the most popular platform today.
But what is the so-called “mastodon”? Launched in 2016 by software developer Eugen Rochko, Mastodon describes itself as a “decentralized social media platform and free open source” which aims to be a “viable alternative to Twitter”.
It borrows its name from “an extinct relative” of mammoth and elephant while its software “was developed by Mastodon gGmbH”, a German non-profit organization always driven by the same Rochko.
Being open source, writes the Times, means that the original source code of Mastodon “is publicly available and can be redistributed and modified” for which “people can contribute to the code behind Mastodon by finding and fixing bugs, adding new features and translating its interface into different languages”.
So much so that “anyone can create their own version of Mastodonwith rules that apply only to that version” by the people who use it.
But how does Mastodon differ from Twitter? The Times writes that “Twitter is a single social network, which means that people sign up and share content only on Twitter” while “Mastodon is a federated platformwhich means it’s a collection of social networks that connect to each other but are owned by different people or groups.”
Then, unlike Twitter, “Mastodon presents posts in chronological order, rather than according to an algorithm”, has no advertising and “is largely crowdfunded”, meaning “most servers are funded by the people who use them”, through Patreon, a subscription service platform often used by content creators.
As for how to join the Mastodon community, just “create an account on a server and this website will host your account, profile and feed” and while some sites allow immediate registration, others require approval or invitation. “There are at least 4,000 independent serversaccording to estimates by fedeverse.party”, concludes the New York newspaper.