Recent changes to Twitter, which impose new restrictions on the number of posts users can view, have seemingly catalyzed a notable increase in activity on Mastodon, a German competitor that emphasizes a decentralized, user-centric model.
“Looks like Mastodon’s active user base has increased by 110K (110,000) over the last day. Not bad,” reported Eugen Rochko, the platform’s founder and CEO, via a post late Sunday.
“I would prefer it if Elon Musk was destroying his site during the work week. This isn’t the first time,” Rochko added in another message.
Twitter’s CEO Elon Musk unveiled the new post-reading limits on Saturday. He had previously criticized artificial intelligence companies like OpenAI, which owns ChatGPT, for leveraging Twitter’s data to develop their large language models.
Musk acquired Twitter in October 2022 and has since adopted a management approach that has led to some users and advertisers distancing themselves from the platform.
Mastodon shares features with Twitter; however, its structure is quite different. The platform operates across thousands of servers, which are largely managed by volunteer administrators, allowing for a federated network rather than a single corporate entity.
Marketing experts expressed concerns on Monday that Musk’s decision to limit post visibility could complicate the efforts of Twitter’s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, in regaining the trust of advertisers.
Yaccarino has been focused on mending relations with advertisers who left the platform following Musk’s takeover, according to a report from the Financial Times last week.
Industry analyst Mike Proulx of Forrester described the new limits as “remarkably bad” for both users and advertisers, who are already unsettled by the “chaos” brought about by Musk’s leadership.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
