Some Twitter users flying the coop hope Mastodon will be a safe landing - WKNO FM

1 year ago 33

Few radical extracurricular machine programmers oregon engineers had heard of the societal web Mastodon earlier Elon Musk bought Twitter.

Now, Twitter users queasy astir changes the eccentric billionaire is making are signing up for Mastodon accounts successful droves. Mastodon reached a cardinal users earlier this week, up from nether 400,000 earlier Musk closed the Twitter woody connected Oct. 27.

The surge successful popularity has amazed adjacent Eugen Rochko, who founded Mastodon successful 2016.

"What I ever wanted to effort to get implicit arsenic a hurdle is the thought that, no, there's not capable radical successful there, truthful I can't truly usage it. Or it's for nerds," helium said.

Now he's pulling all-nighters to conscionable the increasing demand.

But Mastodon is not the astir intuitive societal media platform. Mastodon is open-source software, meaning anyone truthful inclined could acceptable up a server to big users and link to different servers, making for a decentralized network.

"Nobody is successful power of the full network," Rochko said.

"It is, successful effect, much democratic," helium asserts, due to the fact that the operators of each idiosyncratic server tin acceptable contented standards based connected the preferences of the communities they're trying to serve.

But helium admits galore caller users get hung up connected choosing which server from thousands to join.

"I tried to explicate Mastodon to my fiancée's aged stepdad once, and I deliberation I managed to bash it," helium said.

John Wilker is 1 of the galore Twitter users present casting astir for alternatives. He's tried Mastodon before, among others.

"I joined a Mastodon [server] that was each astir subject fabrication and phantasy writing. And I'm like, 'This is great. These are decidedly my people!'" helium said. "But past nary 1 other is there."

Breaking up with Twitter is hard to do, galore users find

Wilker, who joined Twitter successful 2007, credits the level for helping him motorboat his vocation arsenic a science-fiction writer. But he's gotten fed up with it before, similar aft the 2016 elections, past again successful 2020.

John Wilker, a subject fabrication writer successful Denver, is 1 of the galore Twitter users present casting astir for alternatives.

"It would ever travel down to conscionable like, OK, this feels similar the ratio present is turning much towards doomposting, mean-spirited blistery takes connected things. That was usually erstwhile I'd commencement to look" for alternate societal platforms, helium said.

But helium says it's been hard to replicate elsewhere the operation of the assemblage he's built implicit the years connected Twitter and the tools to customize his accusation feed. It's not for deficiency of trying. He said helium signs up for astir caller societal networking sites that travel along, but helium keeps returning to Twitter.

Twitter is much than a societal network, says Karen North, a prof astatine University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

"People travel to Twitter due to the fact that they privation to beryllium portion of a assemblage of radical crowdsourcing accusation and opinions," she said. "It's truly a spot wherever journalists spell to get a heads up connected a headline, get a punctuation by the source, physique their stories and speech to their audiences."

But that is changing. Shortly earlier Election Day, the Associated Press warned its journalists to see Twitter and different societal media platforms "also relation arsenic arenas of accusation warfare," and to attack each posts with skepticism.

Twitter, nether Musk, has overhauled its strategy of marking verified accounts with bluish checkmarks. Now, immoderate bluish checkmarks inactive bespeak that the institution has confirmed a user's identity. Other bluish checkmarks simply signify that the idiosyncratic has a monthly subscription, starring to wide confusion.

Meredith Clarke, a communications prof astatine Northeastern University, is penning a publication astir Black Twitter. She's sticking with Twitter due to the fact that it's cardinal to her research. But she knows users who are looking astir for options consciousness torn astir leaving. While much fashionable societal networks similar Facebook and TikTok service immoderate of the aforesaid needs arsenic Twitter, they are not the same.

"No different societal networking level has the aforesaid benignant of tools that marque transportation imaginable the mode Twitter does," she said.

Even earlier Musk took over, she said, Twitter didn't bash a bully occupation of protecting Black and different marginalized users. She worries it'll get adjacent worse for them nether Musk, who is known for his belligerence and trolling of those who disagree with him.

"The question is whether they privation to woody with the benignant of harassment that has decidedly spiked successful the past fewer days and weeks, whether they privation to beryllium determination when, say, the main chaos cause successful charge, [former President Donald Trump,] is allowed backmost connected the platform," Clark said.

Musk has said it was a mistake for Twitter to prohibition Trump soon aft the Jan. 6, 2021 onslaught connected the U.S. Capitol. At the time, the institution said Trump broke its rules astir inciting violence.

North, of USC, says galore radical volition enactment connected Twitter simply due to the fact that of the clip and effort it takes to acceptable up a caller assemblage connected different site. But she notes users' shifting allegiance implicit clip is besides portion of the improvement of societal media.

Young radical migrated from Facebook to Instagram, she said. "Then they got frustrated with Instagram and they went implicit to Snapchat. And earlier that, everybody near MySpace, and earlier that, everybody near Friendster. And it's hard to retrieve that Friendster and MySpace adjacent existed."

A accidental to rethink what societal media could beryllium

If a captious wide of Twitter users godforsaken it for Mastodon oregon different alternatives, it could beryllium an accidental for a do-over of sorts for societal media networks.

"Let's ask, 'What does it mean to physique an intentional societal web astir timely, accurate, section knowledge?'" said Joan Donovan, a Harvard Kennedy School prof and co-author of the caller publication "Meme Wars." "Rather than commencement from the premise of, 'We're conscionable going to beryllium the tubes that propulsion accusation astir the Web and nary one's going to beryllium liable for quality.'"

Donovan says ideate if we could support the parts we like: casual online assemblage gathering and amusive memes, for example. And suffer the parts we hate, similar the disinformation, compulsion, and breathless pursuit for likes and eyeballs.

As for Wilker, the sci-fi writer, helium says he's acceptable for a interruption from his narration with Twitter.

"We've decidedly taken it to places that aren't large for nine oregon our intelligence well-being. So possibly we could fig retired a societal media that isn't truthful toxic oregon favorite-driven," helium said.

But erstwhile it comes to quitting Twitter altogether, helium says helium thought of it. Then, helium thought again.

"No, I person nary plans to spell anywhere. No plans to wholesale locomotion away," helium said.

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