NIYATI GOYAL:
Elon Musk’s twitter takeover has not gone down well with some users and many are taking to its decentralised alternative called Mastodon. Mastodon is one of the growing alternatives to Twitter and comes with a number of new features, along with a new approach. The open-source network has crossed one million users in the past few days, according to its lead developer and Chief Executive Officer Eugen Rochko. But to be fair, Mastodon has seen spurts such as this in the past, first in 2017, then in 2019 from India users who were unhappy with Twitter’s policy and even back in May this year when the Musk deal was first announced.
Meanwhile, Musk had tweeted and then deleted a rather crude joke mocking Mastodon’s name. He has also tweeted about Twitter’s user base and usage is at an all-time high since the deal. Now, whether we see an actual shift in Twitter users remains to be seen, as the new Twitter Blue subscription and verification rules are yet to come for many regions, including India.
if you’re willing to sign up for Mastodon in the meantime and are trying to figure out how the platform works, here’s a quick guide to the same. simplest way is to sign up and use the platform via the dedicated apps on Android and iOS. Here’s how to sign up. Once you have downloaded and installed the Mastodon on Android or iOS, you can tap on the ‘Get Started’ button and choose a server to join on the subsequent page. You will then be asked to agree to some basic ground rules and then you must create your unique ID with elements like your full name, email ID and a password, along with a username that will be used on the platform. Click on ‘Next’ to proceed and you’ll soon have your account up and running. You can now explore the UI, find other users you want to follow and add more elements to your profile like a profile picture, a bio and more.