A day following Twitter’s new limits on the number of posts users can see according to their verification status, a rival to the social media company called Mastodon reported a large increase in traffic.
According to a post from the creator and CEO of Mastodon, Eugen Rochko, on July 2 the platform’s active user base surged, with an increase of at least 110,000.
Mastodon is a German rival of Twitter with a similar tweet-like structure, though it highlights that the platform is user-driven and decentralized. Unlike Twitter, which is centralized and controlled by one entity, Mastodon runs via a network of thousands of dispersed computer servers.
Primarily run by volunteer administrators joining their systems together, Rochko also posted a message of thanks to members of the team for “coming to help with the infrastructure despite it being Sunday.”
The platform’s CEO also reposted various messages from long-time users and Mastodon developers Including one post which gave advice to new users on the platform:
“… follow as many people and hashtags as you can. This is not Twitter; there is no algorithm, and it is not going to fill your feed with stuff it thinks you like. You have to curate it yourself.”
The user, who goes by Courtney Heard, ended the post by saying once users curate their own feed “it’s so much more vibrant and rewarding than Twitter has been for a year.” At the time of writing Mastodon’s server status reports 324K active users.
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The influx of activity on Mastodon comes after Elon Musk, the owner and former CEO of Twitter, announced that the platform will impose new limits on the number of posts accounts can read in a day.
According to Musk’s new rules, Twitter users with verified accounts will be allowed to view 10,000 posts daily, while accounts that are new and unverified will get 500 under the new limits.
Musk didn’t cite a specific reason behind the new limitations, though he has tweeted about the platform “getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users.”
Recent data has also revealed an alarming number of fake accounts within many communities on Twitter.
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