On October 27, 2022, Elon Musk officially became the head of Twitter. If the soap opera has done a lot of ink, then the realization of this $44 billion buyout doesn’t just make people happy. As soon as he arrived, Elon Musk started the revolution that he had been promising for several months. After firing the company’s top executives, the earthly billionaire announced that Twitter Blue will now include account certification for $8 per month (after announcing a $20 fee). These first network transformations social believers rushed to the blue bird. Frustrated, they turned to an alternative known as Mastodon. But what is this new network social ? Can it really replace Twitter? We tell you everything.
Mastodon: Anti-Twitter?
At first glance, Mastodon looks a lot like Twitter. This network social microblogging allows you to express yourself with a limited number of characters (500 here compared to 280 for Twitter), add a photo, poll, link or any other content in son “toots”. Yes, on Mastodon, a tweet becomes a beep and a retweet is called a boost. Like on Twitter on can follow other users’ accounts and reply to their messages. Messages are also displayed in chronological order. In this way, Twitter regulars will quickly find their mark. “If Mastodon is so much like Twitter, why not stay on Twitter? “Great question, thanks for asking. In fact, Mastodon’s philosophy is quite different from Twitter’s philosophy. Eugen Rochko, the German computer scientist who created Mastodon, explained in a press release published in April 2022 the reasons that led him to develop this net. social :
The funny thing is, one of the reasons I got into decentralized social media in 2016 and eventually led me to create Mastodon was a rumor that Twitter, the platform I used on a daily basis for years, might be sold to another controversial billionaire.
Open source and non-commercial
What is a decentralized web? Take Twitter for comparison. Access to the social network there is only one address web, twitter.com. Mastodon is built around a set of servers called “instances” that take different forms (mastondon.top, mastodon.social…) and sometimes even classified by topic (food, region, art, tech…) This architecture makes accessing the service more difficult than on Twitter. But the Mastodon app makes it easy. “Servers provide a service like GMail or Hotmail for email,” Eugene Rochko explains to the Guardian. But these servers, although different, are not “isolated from each other, as in discussion forums.” Thus, “having an account, you can follow anyone and interact with anyone in this decentralized and global network,” Evgeny Rochko assures. And add:
People ask us why Mastodon is not a site web unique. Website web unique that can be used worldwide require such computing power, infrastructure and technology that it is practically impossible to do this without significant capital investments and monetization.
However, the essence of Mastodon is not to earn money on users’ backs. Net social is based on a limited liability company established in Germany. Feature: It is non-commercial. As for the software, it is open source, that is, completely free.
Without moderation
On paper, it looks like everything is set for the mastodon to strike big. public. It really combines the ingredients of Twitter’s success without its downsides (like ads). But not everything is perfect. Mastodon allows you to create son own server that gives “control total with your voice on web, not obeying the rules or anyone’s whims, ”the company assures. This may be true in the US, but not in Europe, where DMA and DSA will force users to work on any network. social respect the law of the country in which they are located, in particular with regard to freedom of speech. Then there is the question of moderation. Since you are the owner of the server, where does the freedom of expression end? Bloomberg reporter Drake Bennett summarizes who Mastodon is for:
If your problem with Twitter is seeing annoying ads fastproducts, then yes. But if it’s the hostility, the anger that comes from most of the content he found there, then maybe not.
Is the mastodon really saving frustrated Twitter users? Nothing less confident. There are other alternatives, such as Reddit or Discord, that are eyeing this goal. First of all, Ouest-France reminds that the co-founder of Twitter himself is preparing to launch a new network. social in version beta. Its name is Bluesky Social. That’s when!
