The surge in Mastodon’s active users came after Twitter’s ex-CEO Elon Musk announced a temporary cap on the number of Tweets users can read on the platform.
Twitter’s German alternative Mastodon is seemingly benefitting from the turmoil at the Elon Musk-owned microblogging site after the introduction of new rules on the platform. Mastodon has seen a surge in activity following Musk’s announcement of a temporary cap on the number of Tweets users can read on the platform.
“So, weekend tally: The number of active users across Mastodon rose by 294K, and posting activity roughly tripled. Lots of new sign-ups, but also many returning users. Fun times!” Eugen Rochko, Mastodon creator and chief executive officer wrote on the platform yesterday.
The surge in Mastodon’s active users came after Twitter’s ex-CEO Elon Musk announced that the microblogging site is putting a temporary cap on the number of Tweets users can read on the platform. The move was a measure to address data scrapping and system manipulation issues, Musk said in a Tweet on July 1.
Musk first kept the limit to 6000 posts per day for verified users, while the cap for unverified account users and new users with unverified accounts was 600 posts and 300 posts a day respectively. The following day, on July 2, he revised the limit without giving any reason. Now, Twitter users who have verified accounts can read up to 10,000 posts per day, while unverified account users can read 1,000 posts a day. New users with unverified accounts will be allowed to read 500 posts in a day.
Prior to putting a cap on the number of tweets users can see, Twitter announced that users will have to have an account on the platform to view Tweets. The move will “make it harder for scrapers to take Twitter’s data like ChatGPT’s web browsing plugin has been doing.” Calling this a “temporary emergency measure, Musk said, “We were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users!”
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.
“I would prefer it if Elon Musk was destroying his site during the work week. This isn’t the first time,” Rochko said in another post on Mastodon.
