Mastodon Sees Increase in User Sign-Ups After Musk Buys Twitter Stake
Elon Musk's decision to buy a stake in Twitter, and his appointment to the company's board, seems to be causing some users to try rival social networking provider Mastodon.
On Tuesday morning, Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko posted: “Sign-ups really picked up since the #elonmusk news.”
Rochko's post included a take on the “distracted boyfriend” meme, which features a man checking out another woman while his girlfriend looks on, disapprovingly. Except this time, the meme was edited to show the boyfriend checking out Mastodon while ignoring Twitter.
Rochko didn’t quantify the sign-up increase; Mastodon’s website says it has 4.4 million users.
The interest in Mastodon, a decentralized social network, is likely due to concern among some users who believe Musk will make major changes to how Twitter operates. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO now owns a 9.2% share in the social media platform, making him the company’s largest shareholder.
On Tuesday, Twitter also announced it was appointing Musk to the company’s board. In response, Musk said he's looking forward to working with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and the rest of the board “ to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months.”
One change Musk seems to be pushing for is an edit button, which many users have asked for over the years. On Monday, his Twitter account tweeted out a poll, surveying if people were in favor of the button or not. Currently, over 73% support the edit button. In a surprise move, Twitter later confirmed that it has indeed been testing an edit button, but it'll first roll out to Twitter Blue paid subscribers.
However, there’s also concern Musk will oppose Twitter’s effort to crack down on misinformation. Last week, he expressed some disapproval
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