As leftists continue their meltdown over Elon Musk taking control of Twitter and restoring free speech, a number of them have jumped ship moving over to Mastodon, which evidently believes in limiting free speech and “democratizing” social media.
The platform has been around since 2016. Mastodon is a decentralized microblogging site that reportedly saw 120,000 new users in the four days after Musk took the helm at Twitter. It has somewhere around 4.5 million users, according to Time. It now has 655,000 active users each month.
German-born founder Eugen Rochko, 29, is making a home for those who want speech controlled. He started the platform because he “was dissatisfied with the state and direction of Twitter,” according to Mastodon’s website.
“I specifically disagree with his stance on free speech, because I think that it depends on your interpretation of what free speech means. If you allow the most intolerant voices to be as loud as they want to, you’re going to shut down voices of different opinions as well. So allowing free speech by just allowing all speech is not actually leading to free speech, it just leads to a cesspit of hate,” Rochko told Time magazine in an interview, referring to Musk.
is mastodon called mastodon to reflect the fact it's already extinct
— Jez (@JezCorden) November 7, 2022
mastodon is the social network that no one cares about unless someone tweets about it
— Shibetoshi Nakamoto (@BillyM2k) November 7, 2022
“I think that is a very uniquely American idea of creating this marketplace of ideas where you can say anything you want completely without limits. It is very foreign to the German mindset where we, in our Constitution, our number one priority is maintaining human dignity. And so, hate speech is not part of the German concept of free speech, for example. So I think that when Elon Musk says that everything’s gonna be allowed, or whatever, I generally disagree with that,” he noted.
Ok, I’ve joined #Mastodon but also this pic.twitter.com/2Uue7E4BR8
— Sinéad Crowley (@SineadCrowley) November 4, 2022
When someone explains how Mastodon works pic.twitter.com/nbGUnKPBJS
— Casey Stegman (@cstegman) November 5, 2022
Among the big names on the left moving over to Mastodon is New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. He announced on Sunday that he created an account on the social media platform.
“So, I’ve opened a Mastodon account as a precaution against the possible Muskocalypse on this site,” Krugman spewed on Twitter.
So, I've opened a Mastodon account as a precaution against the possible Muskocalypse on this site: https://t.co/ybVhwQgsyC
Let me talk about motivation, which may be a bit different from other Twitterati 1/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 6, 2022
“Getting information from such people in more or less real time is extremely valuable… So a mass influx of crazy people won’t directly hurt the way I use Twitter. But I worry about loss of critical mass. As Musk’s apparently uncontrollable nastiness and childishness drives away users and advertisers, it’s easy to see how Twitter’s usefulness could collapse,” he asserted.
Mastodon bills itself as “social networking that’s not for sale.” It appears to be very anti-corporate and is open-source. It’s also complicated and non-intuitive, according to numerous users.
The number of people who switched over to #Mastodon in the last week alone has surpassed 230 thousand, along with many returning to old accounts bumping the network to over 655 thousand active users, highest it's ever been!
Why? 👉 https://t.co/9Ik30hT3xR
— Mastodon (@joinmastodon) November 3, 2022
“I have no idea what will replace Twitter if and when that happens. But I’m doing what I can to retain an alternative social media foothold,” Krugman added.
He’s not alone. More than a few leftists are jumping ship at Twitter because of what they call “hate speech.”
Actress and comedian Kathy Griffin joined the exodus in early November and journalist Molly Jong-Fast joined in late October, according to CNN Business.
I knew Elon's twitter would be wild but I never expected Kathy Griffin to get banned and then log into her dead mothers account to protest her ban pic.twitter.com/ku2MT6bjor
— Harrison (@HarrisonKrank) November 7, 2022
BREAKING: @KathyGriffin has been permanently suspended from Twitter for impersonating @ElonMusk pic.twitter.com/ust86DZHKj
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 6, 2022
Musk is cleaning house at Twitter and the process is painful but necessary. He has made massive staff cuts and advertisers have dropped the platform at the urging of powerful leftists. He also wants to charge a monthly fee for the “verified” blue check mark.
The incessant bleating cries from the left over his moves so far have been continuous. Many big names on the left won’t be missed from the platform.
They are free to move to a platform that ironically does not promote free speech and embraces a democracy instead of a republic.
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