Review: Mastodon Decentralizes Social Media

Elon Musk’s shambolic takeover may not have been great for Twitter, but it was fantastic for Mastodon.

Elon Musk's shambolic takeover may not have been great for Twitter, but it was fantastic for Mastodon, a social media platform that saw usership skyrocket in response.

Mastodon is not a single site. Instead, it's a collection of "federated" independent servers, each centered around a topic: anarchism, food, etc. In practice it's like a mix of Reddit and Twitter, but less centralized. Decentralization is in fact Mastodon's big selling point: You don't have to worry about a San Francisco tech executive monkeying with your server.

I considered joining a metal or gaming server, but I knew where I belonged and what I deserved, so I joined one for reporters. It's easy to post and browse on Mastodon, and it's devoid of Twitter's late-life bloat. It's quiet, though, and it's still unclear whether Mastodon's growth will achieve exit velocity or come back down to earth.

Whether it rises or falls, Mastodon's existence is a reminder—for all the bipartisan caterwauling about the need for government to rein in Big Tech's supposed monopoly—that social media users can and do vote with their feet.