It looks like an alternative to Twitter has officially come out on top.
According to an update from MastodonTwitter’s decentralized, open-source alternative is rapidly gaining traction since Twitter was taken over by new owner Elon Musk.
“Mastodon has recently exploded in popularity, growing from around 300,000 monthly active users to 2.5 million between October and November, with more and more journalists, politicians, writers, actors and organizations moving,” said Mastodon creator Eugen Rochko. in a report.
From 300,000 users to 2,500,000 in just one month, that’s pretty substantial growth, especially for a platform that’s just one of many battling in a competition to replace the chaotic new Twitter. by Musk. Early last month, just days after Musk took over ownership of Twitter, Mastodon share that it had about 655,000 users. So, this recent update shows that the growth trend was not a one-time swing with new users joining at a specific time. Elon Musk’s continued antics seem to be helping Mastodon sustain that growth.
It’s worth noting that these numbers only include Mastodon usage through the end of November. It will be interesting to see what growth looks like in December, especially in the period immediately following Musk’s suspension of a handful of journalists who have reported on him, and the banning of the @ElonJet Account. (Disclosure: I am one of those journalists suspended.)
As someone who created an account with Mastodon in April when it first became known that Musk was planning to acquire Twitter, the change to this alternative platform has been significant.
Mastodon has been around for about six years now and once had a fairly small audience of tech-savvy users. Now it goes way beyond that. Users of all kinds seem to find their way to Mastodon.
Of course, Mastodon is still far from Twitter’s much larger user base, which has around 250 million daily active users. And many Mastodon users still use their Twitter accounts alongside their Mastodon account, so they’re not yet entirely separate from the Musk-owned platform.
But, in today’s social media landscape, it’s always good to have alternatives. And Mastodon convincingly demonstrates that it’s the place to go if you want something different from what Musk is offering.
