I usually don't stress thinking or having an opinion about what others do or think. My motto in these cases is mostly you do you, but with the recent actions taken by Elon Musk, one has to stop and think a bit about it. I do not care what he does with his money. If he wants to buy Twitter, Facebook, or the corner store, I don't care. The problem to me begins when he starts firing employees, allegedly after questionable reasons like the number of lines of code, ideology, and who knows what else. Many of the fired employees were in charge of the moderation tools, so as soon as this happened, thousands –if not millions at this point– of tweets with aggressive, racist, transphobic, etc. content started to propagate the social network. That is not cool. Yes, you have the right to express your opinion, but there must be a limit, and to me, that limit is when you cross the line and disrespect, insult, or attack others. That, to me, is not free speech. That is abusive speech.
Mastodon has been around for a while. I discovered it in a previous Twitter migration circa 2018. Like many, this past week, I had to learn new concepts, search for instances, try different clients, and eventually install and run my server. It did not stick. After a few months terminated my instance and moved on. But that is not the end of the story. I have been in and out of Mastodon many times and on many servers. I still have a few –redirected– accounts today that I used in the past. Still, this time and thanks to the massive attraction Mastodon gained, I have posted more statuses than ever and am currently growing my network. Many ask if this will be just another fluke or if this will be another WhatsApp to Telegram attempt. My answer is no, it might not make Twitter go bankrupt, but it will stick with many people. Why do I think this? Because I've seen lots of messages that agree with me, some like:
I have posted more in Mastodon in the last few days than I ever did all these years on Twitter.
Or:
Everyone is so welcoming here! Love it.
And also:
It feels so good to be in Mastodon. It has a '90s vibe where everyone is nice, and there is no algorithm driving what I read.
So, yes, many of those 250K+ new users will not stick around after a while, but many will and those will share their experiences with the rest of the world.
Mastodon is now visible and in many users' mouths (and fingers).
Welcome to the Fediverse!
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