Jump to content

Mastodon (social network)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Mastodon Social)

Mastodon
Original author(s)Eugen Rochko[1]
Developer(s)Mastodon gGmbH[2]
Initial release16 March 2016; 8 years ago (2016-03-16)[3]
Stable release
4.3.1[4] Edit this on Wikidata / 21 October 2024; 24 days ago (21 October 2024)
Preview release
4.3.0-rc1 / September 30, 2024; 45 days ago (2024-09-30)
Repository
Written inRuby on Rails, JavaScript (React.js, Redux)
Operating systemCross-platform
PlatformiOS, Android, Linux, BSD, macOS, Microsoft Windows
Available in93 languages[5]
TypeMicroblogging
LicenseAGPLv3+[6]
Websitejoinmastodon.org Edit this at Wikidata
A cartoon Mastodon mascot
The mascot of the Mastodon social network

Mastodon is a open source, self-hosted, social networking service. Mastodon uses the ActivityPub protocol for federation which allows users to communicate between independent Mastodon instances and other ActivityPub compatible services. Mastodon has microblogging features similar to Twitter, and is generally considered to be a part of the Fediverse.[7][8][9]

Each Mastodon instance has its own code of conduct, terms of service, privacy policy, privacy options, and content moderation policies.

Mastodon was created by Eugen Rochko and revealed to the public via Hacker News in October 2016.[10] Not long after, it quickly gained popularity and became the dominant platform in the fediverse and overtaking the previous leader, GNU social. It gained significant adoption in 2022 following the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk.[11][12][13]

The project is maintained by the German non-profit Mastodon GmbH.[14] Development of Mastodon is crowd-funded, and does not contain any support for advertisements or monetized features.

Functionality and features

[edit]

Mastodon servers run social networking software that is capable of communicating using W3C's ActivityPub standard, which has been implemented since version 1.6.[15] A Mastodon user can therefore interact with users on any other server in the Fediverse that supports ActivityPub.

Since version 2.9.0, Mastodon has offered a single-column mode for new users by default.[16] In advanced mode, Mastodon approximates the microblogging interface of TweetDeck. Users post short-form status messages, historically known as "toots",[17][18] for others to see. On a standard Mastodon instance, these messages can include up to 500 text-based characters, greater than Twitter's 280-character limit. Some instances support even longer messages.[19][20]

Users join a specific Mastodon server, rather than a single centralized website or application. The servers are connected as nodes in a network, and each server can administer its own rules, account privileges, and whether to share messages to and from other servers. Many servers have a theme based on a specific interest.[21]

Mastodon includes a number of specific privacy features. Each message has a variety of privacy options available, and users can choose whether the message is public or private. Public messages display on a global feed, known as a timeline, and private messages are only shared on the timelines of the user's followers. Messages can also be marked as unlisted from timelines or direct between users. Users can also mark their accounts as completely private. In the timeline, messages can display with an optional content warning feature, which requires readers to click on the hidden main body of the message to reveal it. Mastodon servers have used this feature to hide spoilers, trigger warnings, and not safe for work (NSFW) content, though some accounts use the feature to hide links and thoughts others might not want to read.[8][21]

Mastodon aggregates messages in local and federated timelines in real time. The local timeline shows messages from users on a singular server, while the federated timeline shows messages across all participating Mastodon servers. Users can communicate across connected Mastodon servers with usernames similar in format to full email addresses.[20][21]

Content moderation

[edit]

In early 2017, journalists like Sarah Jeong[22] distinguished Mastodon from Twitter for its approach to combating harassment.[21] Mastodon uses community-based moderation, in which each server can limit or filter out undesirable types of content, while Twitter uses a single, global policy on content moderation. Servers can choose to limit or filter out messages with disparaging content. The main author of the Mastodon software, Eugen Rochko, believes that small, closely related communities deal with unwanted behavior more effectively than a large company's small safety team.[23] Users can also block and report others to administrators, much like on Twitter.[21][24]

Instance administrators can block other instances from interacting with their own, an action called defederation. By posting toots hashtagged with #fediblock, some instance administrators and users alert others of issues requiring moderation.[25]

Comparison to Twitter

[edit]

Unlike Twitter (now known as X), Mastodon by default only allows for hashtags and mentioned accounts in the Fediverse to be searched, but allows server administrators to enable functionality via Elasticsearch to search for the full text of public posts that have opted-in to being indexed.[26][27] Searches are limited to all content that the instance knows about, either locally or from other instances that have been indexed. However, services utilizing the ActivityPub protocol exist which allow for searching all posts on all instances as long as users opt-in.[28]

For similar reasons, only hashtags can appear in a Mastodon instance's trending topics, not arbitrary popular words. Trending topics vary between instances, since individual instances are aware of different subsets of posts from the whole fediverse.[29]

Quote posts do not exist on Mastodon, and quotes from other instances that run software with quotes do not display an embed of the quoted post. While previously rejected from being implemented due to issues with toxicity and harassment,[30] a project has since started via funding from NLnet with the goal of implementing a standard that avoids these issues.[31]

Versions

[edit]

In September 2018, with the release of version 2.5 with redesigned public profile pages, Mastodon marked its 100th release.[32] Mastodon 2.6 was released in October 2018, introducing the possibilities of verified profiles and live, in-stream link previews for images and videos.[33] Version 2.7, in January 2019, made it possible to search for multiple hashtags at once, instead of searching for just a single hashtag. Version 2.7 has more robust moderation capabilities for server administrators and moderators, while accessibility, such as contrast for users with sight issues, was improved.[34] The ability for users to create and vote in polls, as well as a new invitation system to manage registrations was integrated in April 2019.[35] Mastodon 2.8.1, released in May 2019, made images with content warnings blurred instead of completely hidden.[36] In version 2.9 in June 2019, an optional single-column view was added.[37] This view became the default displayed to new users, with a user "preferences" option to switch to a multiple-column-based view.[citation needed]

In August 2020, Mastodon 3.2 was released. It included a redesigned audio player with custom thumbnails and the ability to add personal notes to one's profile.[38]

In July 2021, an official client for iOS devices was released. According to the project's CEO, Eugen Rochko, the release was part of an effort to attract new users.[39]

Mastodon 4.0 was released in November 2022, including language support for translating posts, editing posts and following hashtags.[40]

Software

[edit]
Two Mastodon developers at the Mastodon booth at FOSDEM 2024

Mastodon is published as free and open-source software under the Affero GPL license, allowing anyone to use the software or modify it as they wish. Servers can be run by any individual or organization, and users can join these servers as they wish.[41][42] The server software itself is powered by Ruby on Rails and Node.js, with its web client being written in React.js and Redux.[43] The only database software supported is PostgreSQL, with Redis being used for job processing and various actions that Mastodon needs to process.[44] The service is interoperable with the fediverse, a collection of social networking services which use the ActivityPub protocol for communication between each other,[45] with previous versions containing support for OStatus.[46]

Client apps for interacting with the Mastodon API are available for desktop computer operating systems, including Windows, macOS and the Linux family of operating systems, as well as mobile phones running iOS and Android.[20] The API is open for anyone to utilize, allowing clients to be built for any operating system that can connect to the internet.[47]

Adoption

[edit]
Introductory video explaining Mastodon

While Mastodon was first released in October 2016, the service began to expand in late March and early April 2017.[48] Servers were mostly operated by academic institutions, journalists, hobbyists, and activists.[49] The Verge wrote that the community at this time was small and that it had yet to attract the personalities that keep users at Twitter.[21] The global use had risen from 766,500 users as of 1 August 2017, to 1 million users on 1 December 2017.[50][51] In November 2017 artists, writers, and entrepreneurs such as Chuck Wendig, John Scalzi, Melanie Gillman and later John O'Nolan joined in.[22][52][53][54]

Another spike in popularity came in March through April 2018, due to the concerns about user privacy raised by the #deletefacebook effort.[55]

Membership of Mastodon and other alternative social media sites increased in early December 2018[56][better source needed] after Tumblr announced its intention to ban all adult content from the site.[57]

In November 2019, nearly 20,000 Twitter users in India temporarily shifted to Mastodon over complaints by users against Twitter's moderation policies.[58]

To circumvent the increasing online censorship of social networks in mainland China, an increasing number of Chinese-language users have chosen to migrate to Mastodon in 2022.[59][60]

[edit]

A spike in Mastodon's user participation occurred in April 2022, following the 25 April announcement of Elon Musk purchasing Twitter. By 27 April, 30,000 new users had joined Mastodon.[61][62] On 28 April 2022, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) launched the official ActivityPub microblogging platform (EU Voice) of the EU institutions, bodies and agencies (EUIs), based on Mastodon.[63]

Musk's acquisition became final on 27 October 2022. Mastodon had an increase of 70,000 new users from a resultant "diaspora" on 28 October alone.[64][65] Daily downloads increased substantially, rising from 3,400 daily downloads on 27 October to 113,400 on 6 November 2022.[66] According to Rochko, by 3 November, use of the federated network had grown to 665,000 active users, with a few growing pains. In particular, Mastodon's largest instance, mastodon.social, needed capacity upgrades to handle the new load.[11][67] Accounts on a server called journa.host founded by Adam Davidson are restricted to professional journalists.[68]

Mastodon's increased adoption continued in the days following the Twitter takeover. On 11 November, the number of new users of the platform compared to the previous week was reported to be 700,000,[12] moving Mastodon over the 7 million user mark.[13] During that period, several prominent figures joined Mastodon, including prominent actors, comedians, journalists, political activists, and politicians.[69] In December 2022, the number of monthly active users of Mastodon reached two million.[70]

On 15 December, the official Mastodon Twitter account was banned from Twitter, as well as other accounts with links to some Mastodon instances.[71] On the following day, Twitter began to flag all Mastodon links as malware, preventing Twitter users from sharing them.[72][73] A Mediaite opinion piece on the bannings included an erroneous report of an account for "John Mastodon" (a misspelling of @joinmastodon), "founder of a competing social media company named after himself", being banned.[74] Subsequently, Mastodon users wrote fictional backstories and memes about "John Mastodon" and circulated the hashtag #JohnMastodon.[75]

Following the Mastodon suspension and ban on Mastodon links on Twitter,[76] Twitter introduced a new policy on 18 December to prohibit sharing links on Twitter to a variety of social media websites, with Mastodon being one of those blocked. The policy stated that it prohibited links in both tweets and account details and that accounts that violated the policy would be suspended.[77][78][79] By 19 December, the policy and official mentions about it had been removed from Twitter web pages.[80][81] Musk stated the following day that banning users for posting Mastodon links had been a mistake.[82]

Rochko stated that at least five venture capital firms looking to invest in Mastodon had been turned away by December 2022, and that Mastodon's nonprofit status would not be jeopardized.[83]

By the start of January 2023, Mastodon had 1.8 million active users, down 30% from its peak of over 2.5 million active users in early December 2022.[84] On 19 March 2023, Mastodon surpassed the ten million mark for registered user accounts.[85] In July 2023, Mastodon’s founder, Eugen Rochko, stated that monthly active users were increasing again, surpassing the 2-million mark.[86] that ensued, there was a significant migration of users to alternative platforms.[87] Mastodon has been considered a prominent alternative in this landscape, alongside platforms like Threads and Bluesky.[88]

Notable instances

[edit]

As a result of its open source nature and ability to be deployed without restriction, various organizations, companies and governments have started their own Mastodon instances. While some instances have mentioned their usage of Mastodon for the service and identify themselves as a Mastodon instance, others have attempted to conceal their origin by removing all mentions of Mastodon from the public view. These instances also don't release their source code modifications, violating the AGPLv3 license in use by Mastodon.

In 2017, Pixiv launched a Mastodon-based social network named Pawoo.[89] The service was acquired by media company Russell in December 2019;[90][91][92] in December 2022, Russell sold it to The Social Coop Limited, a Cayman Islands-based entity affiliated with Web3 firm Mask Network.[93][94][95] Pawoo is banned by most instances on Mastodon due to allowing lolicon art.[96][97]

In April 2019, computer manufacturer Purism released a fork of Mastodon named Librem Social.[98][99]

Gab, a controversial social network with a far-right user base, changed its software platform to a fork of Mastodon and became the largest Mastodon node in July 2019.[100] Gab's adoption of Mastodon allowed Gab to be accessed from third-party Mastodon applications, although four of them blocked Gab shortly after the change.[101] In response, Mastodon's main contributors stated in their blog that they were "completely opposed to Gab’s project and philosophy", and criticized Gab for attempting "to monetize and platform racist content while hiding behind the banner of free speech" and for "paywalling basic features that are freely available on Mastodon".[102] Gab later removed federation with ActivityPub due to various perceived technical issues and plans to build its own protocol.

Tooter is an Indian social networking product launched in September 2020 that uses the Mastodon source code, initially without releasing its modifications. The service also identified itself as being wholly made in India, despite its origin.[103]

In October 2021, former US President Donald Trump founded Truth Social, which is based on Mastodon.[7] Initially, Truth Social did not make its source code available, violating Mastodon's AGPLv3 license. Eugen Rochko sent a formal letter to Truth Social's chief legal officer on 26 October 2021.[104] On 12 November 2021, Truth Social published its source code.[105][106]

In April 2022, the European Union launched its own Mastodon and PeerTube instances via the European Data Protection Supervisor, dubbing them "EU Voice" and "EU Video". The instances were a test run of whether it would be sustainable to run its own social media platforms.[107] While the pilot ended two years later in 2024 (after an extension in 2023 for another year) and taking the instances offline after being unable to find an organization that would take over operations, the European Commission has launched their own separate instance.[108][109]

In December 2022, the Mozilla Foundation launched a Mastodon instance under mozilla.social,[110] initially with closed registrations before opening it up as a private beta.[111] However, the instance has since been discontinued and is being taken offline on December 17, 2024.[112]

Security

[edit]

While Mastodon's decentralized structure is one of its most distinctive features, it also poses additional security challenges.

Since many Mastodon instances are run by volunteers, some security experts are concerned about data security and responsiveness to new threats and vulnerabilities across the network, considering the difficulty of configuring and maintaining an instance as well as uneven skill levels among administrators. Configuration errors and security bugs in server implementation has already led to user data being scraped or modified by attackers. It is worth noting that Mastodon also collects considerably less personal data, compared to other social media platforms, which makes it a lower-value target and reduces potential damage.[113] The creator of Mastodon, Eugen Rochko, argues[citation needed] that these issues do not set it apart from other software products that can be hosted by non-professionals.

In 2023, the Mozilla Foundation contracted cybersecurity firm Cure53 to perform penetration testing on the Mastodon software, in preparation for establishing an instance for the Mozilla community. The testing discovered several vulnerabilities, including one called "TootRoot" that would have enabled arbitrary code execution and another that would have enabled cross-site scripting attacks through oEmbed cards. These vulnerabilities were patched in July 2023.[114]

Mastodon has been the main suspect in an issue regarding the generation of OpenGraph link previews, wherein the data from the link is not cached by the post and transmitted to other instances. Many instances in turn automatically fetch the preview data as well as soon as they receive the post (which can be near-instantaneously after the post is created), creating an accidental DDoS attack that can temporarily increase the load of a victim's server.[115] A fix to add federation for link previews was planned for 4.3, but has since been delayed for Mastodon 4.4.[116]

Funding

[edit]

Mastodon is crowdfunded and does not contain ads; as of November 2022, it was supported by 3,500 people. Since 2021 it has been registered in Germany as a nonprofit organization (German: gemeinnützige GmbH);[117] a US nonprofit was established in April 2024.[118] The organization started selling stuffed toys in October 2024.[119]

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Lekach, Sasha (6 April 2018). "The coder who built Mastodon is 24, fiercely independent, and doesn't care about money". Mashable. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  2. ^ "The company behind Mastodon". joinmastodon.org.
  3. ^ "v0.1.0". 16 March 2016. Retrieved 18 July 2019 – via GitHub.
  4. ^ "Release 4.3.1". 21 October 2024. Retrieved 22 October 2024.
  5. ^ English plus 92 translations listed in "Mastodon translations in Crowdin". Crowdin. Retrieved 8 November 2022.
  6. ^ "mastodon/mastodon". Mastodon. 5 November 2022.
  7. ^ a b Chan, Wilfred (2 November 2022). "Mastodon gained 70,000 users after Musk's Twitter takeover. I joined them". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 November 2022.
  8. ^ a b Farokhmanesh, Megan (7 April 2017). "A beginner's guide to Mastodon, the hot new open-source Twitter clone". The Verge. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  9. ^ Wong, Joon Ian (6 April 2017). "How to use Mastodon, the Twitter alternative that's becoming super popular". Quartz. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  10. ^ "Show HN: A new decentralized microblogging platform". 5 October 2016. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  11. ^ a b Perez, Sarah (3 November 2022). "Decentralized social network Mastodon grows to 655K users in wake of Elon Musk's Twitter takeover".
  12. ^ a b "How to Join Mastodon? Be Patient and Kind". MSN. Retrieved 12 November 2022.
  13. ^ a b "Confused by Twitter 'Replacement' Mastodon? Here's How to Get Started". CNET.
  14. ^ Knight, Will. "The Man Behind Mastodon Built It for This Moment". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
  15. ^ "Release 1.6.0". github.com.
  16. ^ "Mastodon 2.9". Official Mastodon Blog. 14 June 2019. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  17. ^ "Mastodon Has Officially Retired the 'Toot,' Its Version of the Tweet". Gizmodo. 15 November 2022. Retrieved 2 June 2023.
  18. ^ Nerlich, Brigitte (11 November 2022). "'It's not a retoot is it?' Moving between platforms and languages". Making Science Public.
  19. ^ "Twitter just doubled the character limit for tweets to 280". Theverge.com. 26 September 2017. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  20. ^ a b c "How To Get Started on Mastodon and Leave Twitter Behind". PCMAG. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  21. ^ a b c d e f Farokhmanesh, Megan (7 April 2017). "A beginner's guide to Mastodon, the hot new open-source Twitter clone". The Verge. Retrieved 8 April 2017.
  22. ^ a b "Mastodon Is Like Twitter Without Nazis, So Why Are We Not Using It?". Motherboard. 4 April 2017. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  23. ^ "One Mammoth of a Job: An Interview with Eugen Rochko of Mastodon". medium.com/we-distribute. 9 July 2018. Retrieved 5 October 2019.
  24. ^ Chan, Wilfred (18 April 2023). "Thousands fled to Mastodon after Musk bought Twitter. Are they still 'tooting'?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2 June 2023. Retrieved 13 June 2023.
  25. ^ Moody, Glyn (12 December 2022). "Raspberry Pi shows how not to Mastodon". Techdirt. Archived from the original on 24 March 2023. Retrieved 13 June 2023.
  26. ^ "Full-text search". Mastodon documentation site. Retrieved 27 December 2022.
  27. ^ Hassan, Nihad (27 November 2022). "Mastodon OSINT: A Comprehensive Introduction". Secjuice. Retrieved 27 December 2022.
  28. ^ "Tootfinder". www.tootfinder.ch. Retrieved 16 April 2024.
  29. ^ "admin/trends API methods - Mastodon documentation". docs.joinmastodon.org. Retrieved 16 April 2024.
  30. ^ "Eugen Rochko (@Gargron@mastodon.social)". Mastodon. 10 March 2018. Retrieved 17 September 2024.
  31. ^ "NLnet; ActivityPub Quote Posts". nlnet.nl. Retrieved 17 September 2024.
  32. ^ "Mastodon 2.5 released: Highlights from the changelog". blog.joinmastodon.org. 5 September 2018. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  33. ^ "Mastodon 2.6 released: Highlights from the changelog". Blog.joinmastodon.org. 31 October 2018. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  34. ^ "Mastodon 2.7 released: Highlights from the changelog". Blog.joinmastodon.org. 20 January 2019. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  35. ^ "Mastodon 2.8 Highlights from the changelog". blog.joinmastodon.org. 10 April 2019. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  36. ^ "Improving support for adult content on Mastodon". blog.joinmastodon.org. 5 May 2019. Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  37. ^ "Introducing the single-column layout". blog.joinmastodon.org. 14 June 2019. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
  38. ^ "Mastodon 3.2". Official Mastodon Blog. 2 August 2020. Retrieved 21 August 2020.
  39. ^ "Mastodon now has an official iPhone app". The Verge. 30 July 2021. Retrieved 31 July 2021.
  40. ^ "Release v4.0.0 · mastodon/mastodon". GitHub. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
  41. ^ "Mastodon Instances — The Fediverse Network". Archived from the original on 12 November 2020. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  42. ^ Rochko, Eugen (1 April 2017). "Welcome to Mastodon". Hacker Noon. Archived from the original on 12 September 2018. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  43. ^ "Installation". joinmastodon.org. Archived from the original on 27 December 2018. Retrieved 26 December 2018.
  44. ^ tootsuite/mastodon, Mastodon, 4 February 2021, retrieved 4 February 2021
  45. ^ "Release v1.6.0". GitHub. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  46. ^ Your self-hosted, globally interconnected microblogging community: tootsuite/mastodon, TootSuite, 4 October 2019, retrieved 4 October 2019
  47. ^ "List of apps". joinmastodon.org. Archived from the original on 27 January 2022. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  48. ^ Steele, Chandra (6 April 2017). "What Is Mastodon and Will It Kill Twitter?". PCMag Australia.
  49. ^ Klemmens, Ben (2 January 2023). "Mastodon—and the pros and cons of moving beyond Big Tech gatekeepers". Ars Technica. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
  50. ^ "dynamic status of mastodon". Eliotberriott.com. Retrieved 16 April 2017.[dead link]
  51. ^ "Mastodon Users (bot), December 1, 2017, 4:00 PM". Loultstodon. December 2017. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  52. ^ Bonnington, Christina (22 November 2016). "Mastodon is an open source, decentralized version of Twitter". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  53. ^ Tidey, Jimmy (6 January 2017). "What would Twitter be if it adopted Wikipedia's politics?". openDemocracy. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  54. ^ "Are You on Mastodon Yet? Social Network of Our Own – ProfHacker - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education". Chronicle.com. 28 November 2016. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  55. ^ Fung, Brian (23 March 2018). "Facebook's poor care of customer data is driving users to social networks such as Mastodon". www.philly.com. Washington Post.
  56. ^ "User Count Bot". Mastodon.social. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  57. ^ Gibson, Kate (3 December 2018). "Tumblr banning adult content starting Dec. 17, citing porn concerns". CBS News. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
  58. ^ Kapur, Manavi (12 November 2019). "This chart from Mastodon's creator shows just how angry some Indian Twitter users are". Quartz India. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
  59. ^ Shen, Lu (4 August 2022). "As China Tightens Controls on Social Media, Some Users Seek Refuge Under the Radar". The Wall Street Journal.
  60. ^ "Chinese social media users are flocking to the decentralised Mastodon platform to find community amid crackdown at home". SCMP. 18 September 2022.
  61. ^ Bell, Karissa (27 April 2022). "After Musk's Twitter takeover, an open-source alternative is 'exploding'". Engadget. Archived from the original on 27 April 2022. Retrieved 27 April 2022.
  62. ^ Woźniak, Michał rysiek (27 April 2022). "Elon Musk kupił sobie Twittera. Czy "absolutysta wolności słowa" przywróci konto Trumpa?" [Elon Musk bought Twitter. Will the 'absolute defender of free speech' bring back Trump's account?]. OKO.press (in Polish). Archived from the original on 27 April 2022. Retrieved 27 April 2022.
  63. ^ EDPS launches pilot phase of two social media platforms (press release).
  64. ^ Chan, Wilfred (2 November 2022). "Mastodon gained 70,000 users after Musk's Twitter takeover. I joined them". The Guardian. London, United Kingdom. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  65. ^ "Twitter: 70,000 users join rival Mastodon after Musk takeover". MSN. Retrieved 12 November 2022.
  66. ^ Fischer, Sara (8 November 2022). "Musk's Twitter chaos opens door for challengers". Axios. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
  67. ^ Metz, Rachel (5 November 2022). "With Twitter in chaos, Mastodon is on fire | CNN Business". CNN. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  68. ^ Bernstein, Joseph (21 November 2022). "Chaos on Twitter Leads a Group of Journalists to Start an Alternative". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 27 June 2023.
  69. ^ "15+ Famous Celebrities On Mastodon 2022!". 24 November 2022. Retrieved 2 December 2022.
  70. ^ "Servers". Mastodon. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
  71. ^ Taylor, Hatmaker (16 December 2022). "Twitter suspends Mastodon's account and bans links to Mastodon servers". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 16 December 2022.
  72. ^ Twitter blocks users from sharing Mastodon links BBC News
  73. ^ Elon Musk's Twitter blocked links to rival Mastodon. That could raise alarms among regulators CNN
  74. ^ Schorr, Isaac (16 December 2022). "Hypocrisy and Fear All the Way Down at Twitter". Mediaite. Archived from the original on 16 December 2022. Retrieved 18 December 2022.
  75. ^ Frauenfelder, Mark (18 December 2022). "Mastodon users embrace columnist's funny error about a fictitious "John Mastodon"". Boing Boing. Retrieved 18 December 2022.
  76. ^ Twitter is blocking links to Mastodon, The Verge
  77. ^ Twitter to Ban Accounts That Promote Rival Social Media, The New York Times
  78. ^ Elon Musk launches poll asking if he should quit as Twitter CEO, Reuters
  79. ^ Twitter abruptly bans all links to Instagram, Mastodon, and other competitors The Verge
  80. ^ Twitter deletes new policy banning 'free promotion' of rival social media platforms, USA Today
  81. ^ Twitter Suddenly Reverses Course on 'Policy' That Banned Links to Competing Social Media Sites, Gizmodo
  82. ^ Elon Musk says taking down accounts for posting links of rival Mastodon was 'a mistake', The Independent
  83. ^ Times, Financial (28 December 2022). "Twitter rival Mastodon rejects funding to preserve nonprofit status". Ars Technica.
  84. ^ Nicholas, Josh (7 January 2023). "Elon Musk drove more than a million people to Mastodon – but many aren't sticking around". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
  85. ^ "Mastodon passes the 10 million account milestone | IT World Canada News". 20 March 2023.
  86. ^ "Mastodon Social". mastodon.social. 22 July 2023.
  87. ^ Jeong, Ujun; Sheth, Paras; Tahir, Anique; Alatawi, Faisal; Bernard, H. Russell; Liu, Huan (19 November 2023). "Exploring Platform Migration Patterns between Twitter and Mastodon: A User Behavior Study". arXiv:2305.09196 [cs.SI].
  88. ^ Jeong, Ujun; Nirmal, Ayushi; Jha, Kritshekhar; Tang, Xu; Bernard, H. Russell; Liu, Huan (22 September 2023). "User Migration across Multiple Social Media Platforms". arXiv:2309.12613 [cs.SI].
  89. ^ "Mastodon hosted on pawoo.net". Pawoo. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
  90. ^ "Mastodonインスタンス「Pawoo(パウー)」事業譲渡のお知らせ". Pixiv (in Japanese). 12 November 2019. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  91. ^ "Pawooサポート: "いつもPawooをご利用いただき、誠にありがとうございます。…"". Pawoo (in Japanese). 13 November 2019. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  92. ^ "Mastodonインスタンス「Pawoo(パウー)」事業譲渡のお知らせ|ピクシブ株式会社のプレスリリース". PR Times (in Japanese). 13 November 2019. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  93. ^ "Pawoo事業譲渡のお知らせ". 株式会社ラッセル (in Japanese). 21 December 2023. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  94. ^ "Pawooサポート: "いつもPawooをご利用いただき、誠にありがとうございます。…"". Pawoo (in Japanese). 21 December 2023. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  95. ^ "Mask Network Acquires Pawoo.net, one of the largest Mastodon instances". Yahoo! Finance. 20 December 2023. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  96. ^ Glaser, April; Oremus, Will (30 August 2018). "The New Social Network Dodging Government Surveillance—and Nazis". Slate. Retrieved 27 April 2022.
  97. ^ Zuckerman, Ethan (18 August 2018). "Mastodon is big in Japan. The reason why is… uncomfortable". Retrieved 27 April 2022.
  98. ^ Lunduke, Bryan (30 April 2019). "Purism Launches Librem One, a Suite of Privacy-Protecting, No-Track, No-Ad Apps and Services". Linux Journal. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  99. ^ Kißling, Kristian; Linux Magazin; Grüner, Sebastian (2 May 2019). "Librem One: Purism startet Angebot für sichere Online-Dienste" [Purism Launches Secure Online Services Offering]. Golem.de [de] (in German). Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  100. ^ Makuch, Ben; Koebler, Jason; Mead, Derek (11 July 2019). "Mastodon Was Designed to Be a Nazi-Free Twitter—Now It's the Exact Opposite". Vice. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  101. ^ Robertson, Adi (12 July 2019). "How the biggest decentralized social network is dealing with its Nazi problem". The Verge. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  102. ^ Eleanor (4 July 2019). "Statement on Gab's fork of Mastodon". Official Mastodon Blog. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  103. ^ "How "Swadeshi" is Tooter If It Clones Far-Right Platforms Like Gab?". arre.co.in. 27 November 2020. Archived from the original on 26 February 2021. Retrieved 19 December 2020.
  104. ^ Rochko, Eugen (29 October 2021). "Trump's new social media platform found using Mastodon code". Mastodon Blog.
  105. ^ Kan, Michael (1 December 2021). "Trump's Social Media Site Quietly Admits It's Based on Mastodon". PCMag.
  106. ^ "What's Open Source?". Truth Social Help Center. Retrieved 4 April 2024.
  107. ^ "EU Joins Mastodon Social Network, Sets Up Its Own Server". PCMAG. Retrieved 17 September 2024.
  108. ^ "EDPS decentralised social media pilot: the end of a successful story | European Data Protection Supervisor". www.edps.europa.eu. 12 September 2024. Retrieved 17 September 2024.
  109. ^ "European Commission (@EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu)". European Commission on Mastodon. 17 May 2024. Retrieved 17 September 2024.
  110. ^ "Mozilla to explore healthy social media alternative | The Mozilla Blog". blog.mozilla.org. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  111. ^ "Mozilla Social Private Beta Launch | The Mozilla Blog". blog.mozilla.org. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  112. ^ Perez, Sarah (17 September 2024). "Mozilla exits the fediverse and will shutter its Mastodon server in December". TechCrunch. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  113. ^ Goodin, Dan (29 November 2022). "How secure a Twitter replacement is Mastodon? Let us count the ways". Ars Technica. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  114. ^ Goodin, Dan (6 July 2023). "Mastodon fixes critical "TootRoot" vulnerability allowing node hijacking". Ars Technica. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
  115. ^ "Please Don't Share Our Links on Mastodon: Here's Why!". It's FOSS News. 1 May 2024. Retrieved 17 September 2024.
  116. ^ Connatser, Matthew. "Mastodon delays firm fix to solve link preview DDoS". www.theregister.com. Retrieved 17 May 2024.
  117. ^ Glanz, Berit. "Twitter-Alternative: Wer steckt eigentlich hinter Mastodon?". FAZ.NET (in German). ISSN 0174-4909. Retrieved 14 November 2022.
  118. ^ Perez, Sarah. "Twitter co-founder Biz Stone joins board of Mastodon's new US nonprofit". TechCrunch.
  119. ^ Perez, Sarah (15 October 2024). "X rival Mastodon has started selling toys". TechCrunch. Retrieved 9 November 2024.
[edit]