Mastodon founded by Eugen Rochko in 2016 has similar microblogging features to Twitter.
Just weeks after the peak in popularity, Twitter alternative Mastodon is witnessing a drastic decline in the number of active users. Mastodon’s active users hovered around 1.84 million in the first week of 2023, which is down 30% from the peak, The Guardian reported.
The social media platform had around 2.5 million users in the beginning of December. One possible reason for the decline in active users on the social media platform and as reported by The Guardian, quoting social media strategist Meg Coffey, is that Mastodon may have proven to be too complicated for many users.
The users might have struggled to “port” the community that they were interacting with on Twitter before they left it. Coffey added that several of these users may have gone back to Twitter or even left social media completely.
The Germany-based, free, and open-source social network Mastodon has seen a surge in the number of fresh sign-ups and active users since Musk’s Twitter takeover in late October last year. The network founded by Eugen Rochko in 2016 has similar microblogging features to Twitter where users write posts called toots. They can also reply to others, like posts, repost them and follow other users on the platform.
In December, Twitter announced that it would no longer allow users to share links to other rival social media platforms including Mastodon. However, just hours after the announcement that stirred a massive backlash from users, the controversial policy vanished from Twitter’s policy page and from the Twitter Support account where it was announced in a series of tweets.
