Twitter has a competitor. Toots can replace tweets. Mastodon gained 230 thousand. users

After Elon Musk took over Twitter, many users of the social network declared to switch to another. The eccentric billionaire raises controversy and fears that Twitter will change so much that people who are currently censored will return to the voice. The investor has already announced the first significant change – the blue marker that confirms the authenticity of the Twitter account is already paid. The paid subscription launched on Saturday. Until now, the badge was reserved only for verified accounts.

If not Twitter, then what? Mastodon is gaining popularity

One of the apps that more and more users are starting to use is Mastodon. The tool is not new, because it was created in 2016. So far, the application has collected 655 thousand. users, of which – according to the company’s representatives quoted by the BBC – 230 thousand. joined last week.

If Mastodon and Twitter were to be compared, they are quite similar at first glance. On both sites, you can post short comments relating to different content. However, there are differences. Mastodon is a social network that allows users to connect with each other through decentralized servers. There is no central server that controls the flow of information. Thanks to this, Mastodon is supposed to be more resistant to censorship and blocking than Twitter. It’s also completely open and free. From the very beginning, it was intended to be an alternative to services such as Twitter or Facebook, which are dominated by corporations.

“Tootsy” can replace “Twitty” that’s how Mastodon works

Users of the Mastodon app can post content that is called the word “toots” and can be up to 500 characters long. The service also argues that users have more control over privacy. For example, there is a feature to only share content with approved users. Mastodon also claims that it does not sell user data to advertisers like Twitter does.

The application uses solutions that are supposed to support anonymity. First, there are encrypted messages sent between users, which can only be read by the sender and recipient. Mastodon is also open source. Thanks to this, developers from all over the world can easily get involved in creating new features or fixing bugs.

Finally, one thing is worth emphasizing. Forecasting the collapse of Twitter is definitely premature. The number of active users of the website is estimated at approx. 450 million. It is also not yet known whether Mastodon’s popularity will continue to grow or will fade after some time.