In the week after Elon Musk took over Twitter, the number of individuals signing up for Mastodon, a small social network, increased dramatically.

Mastodon, which has been around since 2016, may be unfamiliar to many social media users, but it is fast developing. Some are leaving Twitter for it or at least looking for another platform to share their ideas online, as the much more well-known social network confronts layoffs and content-moderation adjustments, not to mention an increase in abusive rhetoric.

There may be no apparent substitute for Twitter, a singularly influential medium that is fast-paced, text-heavy, conversational, and news-focused. Mastodon, on the other hand, satisfies a specific itch. The site resembles Twitter in appearance, with a timeline of short updates organized chronologically rather than algorithmically. It allows users to connect to various servers maintained by numerous groups and individuals, rather than a single central platform controlled by a single firm like Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.

Mastodon, unlike larger social networks, is both free to use and ad-free. It was created by Eugen Rochko and is funded through crowdsourcing.

Who dumped Twitter?

Some of the top Twitter users who have joined Mastodon include actor and comedian Kathy Griffin, who joined in early November, and journalist Molly Jong-Fast, who joined in late October.

Sarah T. Roberts, an associate professor at UCLA and the faculty director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry, began actively using Mastodon on October 30, shortly after Musk took over Twitter.

Ok, I’ve joined #Mastodon but also this pic.twitter.com/2Uue7E4BR8

— Sinéad Crowley (@SineadCrowley) November 4, 2022

Roberts, who worked as a staff researcher at Twitter earlier this year while on leave from UCLA, said she was encouraged to start using Mastodon because she was worried about how Twitter's content filtering would change under Musk's supervision. She feels that some newbies are just tired of social media businesses that collect a lot of user data and are primarily motivated by advertising.

She also mentioned that Twitter users might switch to Mastodon because its user experience is very comparable to Twitter's.