Is Mastodon the David to topple the Goliath of Musk-owned Twitter?

I know not everyone on LinkedIn is on Twitter but I guess you may have heard Musk paid $44bn to buy Twitter with the deal going through on October 27th. He’s the man in charge now. What could go wrong? Well it’s not clear yet. This Nature article (https://lnkd.in/eCd2AW8h) has the subhead “Extremists could flock back to the platform under the guise of ‘free speech’ — and researchers are gearing up to study their impact”.

It’s not surprising that there is a lot of anti-Musk activity on Twitter right now. He’s controversial as he wields his billionnaire power. He lost me when he said earlier this year “induced demand is the dumbest idea I have ever heard in my entire life”. Either that makes nearly every transport planner I know really dumb, or Musk ill-informed, deluded or mischievous.

People, including me, have been thinking ‘is this time to look for a replacement to Twitter and get some fresh air?’. The answer for many is called Mastodon (https://joinmastodon.org/). Here’s a handy article to get clued up: https://lnkd.in/ehbFSm2z. I’m still learning but here are some key things:

1. Mastodon is a federation of multiple servers or social networks, all interconnected (forming the fediverse). I’m on the server metalheads.club.
2. You do everything much like Twitter and can be followed by, and follow, people across the fediverse. You toot instead of tweet, and boost instead of retweet.
3. It’s a volunteer-run system with no paid ads.
4. There’s a “Mastodon covenant” which promises “active moderation against racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia”.

I joined three days ago. I’m enjoying it. It’s a new journey finding old friends and making new ones as I build up a list of people I follow and followers. It feels refreshing and liberating. My current approach is to toot and then share my toot onto Twitter as a tweet – my little bit for sticking it to the man.

It seems many are in limbo – not ready to leave Twitter but setting up on Mastodon as well in case ties need to be cut. That’s where I am at.

Mastodon numbers have surged since Musk’s purchase – https://lnkd.in/eshHnmaJ.

Looking forward to the journey ahead.

If you want to join me over in this new (better) world of interaction, my Mastodon handle is @GlennLyons@metalhead.club.

Yes – I’m happy to be part of metalhead.club (my spiritual home) but of course I’m still mad about mobility (and furious about climate change).

What are your thoughts on these developments?

#Mastodon#Twitter#Democracy#Capitalism#socialnetworking