Twitter shut down? How Mastodon works, the social network to which more than 150,000 users have already migrated

The arrival of Elon Musk Twitter has marked a real whirlwind in the social network most used by politicians, journalists and influential personalities. After the resignation of over 100 employees and the changes introduced by the billionaire, many have wondered if it is possible to migrate to another platform. And the answer is yes: one of them is Mastodon.

Mass layoffs, executive churn, advertiser pullouts, erratic user verification decisions, or Musk’s tweets with tone-messaging “trollThese days have made many wary of Twitter’s future.

In this way, many have remembered that there are alternatives, even if it is true that the space in the public sphere that the bird’s social network has does not absolutely nobody has it.

But undoubtedly the natural successor could be Mastodon, which has joined nearby 170 thousand users in 24 hoursit offers itself as an alternative without ads and with a cleaner experience.

Even some social actors such as the European authorities have taken the opportunity to tear down Twitter and recall alternatives like this: “I find it interesting how these events (on Twitter) have aroused curiosity in many people about other services that can be potentially usedInstead, the European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, reflected on this Friday.

What is Mastodon and how does it work?

In 2017when Twitter was still relatively high and showing no signs of slowing down or suffering a implosion unleashed by the billionaires, many have begun to take a serious look at Mastodon.

It is the most obvious alternative to Twitter, which is said to have tripled its users in recent weeks and, according to its founder, Eugen Rochko, it has more than a million monthly active users.

It’s an open source and widely distributed microblogging service – a concept invented by Twitter – that rules out the recommendation algorithm that many was one of Twitter’s problems.

Moreover, it is considered as one more social network”pure”, where hate speech is more regulated and content is better curated.

Mastodon works similar to Twitter, you can write messages, called “toots”, share, reply or “like”, among other functions.

However, there is no single Mastodon, rather it is decentralized into “instances” or servers, anyone can decide to set up or rent a server and open an instance by region or on a specific topic. This is what can make the system a bit confusing.

How to create an account

The new user must choose which server to register on and between these little mastodons there can be communication.

IS decentralization It makes it very powerful, but for some people it can be difficult, as well as searching for someone specific based on the type of identification used.

Each server has its own usage policy, some are extremely respectful with privacy, but you need to make sure which one you are entering.

Creating an account is as simple as going to mastodon.social and choosing the option “Create a profile”, to then follow the traditional steps of registering a user in a social network.

The critical situation of Twitter

After the company’s new owner issued an ultimatum about joining a company “culture reset”, more than 100 employees have left the company: They started posting goodbyes on Slack, the company chat, and even goodbye emojis on social networks.

The new purge from Twitter’s ranks comes after Musk recently fired dozens of employees who criticized or mocked him in internal tweets and messages. Musk then set a Thursday deadline for all employees answer “yes” in a Google form about whether they wanted to stay on what Musk calls “Twitter 2.0.”

Otherwise today would be their last day of work and they would receive severance pay. After the deadline, hundreds of employees quickly began posting goodbye messages and emojis from greeting on Twitter Slackannouncing that he said no to Musk’s ultimatum.

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind for the company: changes to Twitter Blue subscription (which meant losing the verify checkmark for accounts that already have it unless they pay $8 a month), new certifications of “official” for legitimate accounts, layoffs, Musk’s constant cross-referencing with employees on the social network, and more.

Twitter had about 2,900 employees left before Thursday’s deadline, thanks to Musk laying off about half of the workforce. 7500 people when he took office and the resignation that followed.

Remaining and departing Twitter employees told The Verge that given the scale of this week’s resignations, they expect the platform to start crashing soon. One says he saw “legendary engineers” and others look up to leave one by one.