Pros and cons of using Mastodon, which is being presented as a Twitter alternative

At the moment Twitter is in a weird place as Elon Musk, the new owner of the platform, is trying to address issues like misinformation and hate speech on the platform. Then there is the issue about paying for certain features that will come with Twitter Blue. Each time a popular social media network tries to make a drastic change, a new crop of apps take over the conversation. We saw this happen a few months ago when Instagram tried to push video in a big way. In the case of Twitter, the alternative that’s being spoken about is Mastodon, which has an estimated 4.5 million accounts. That the fledgling platform is posing a challenge is clearly visible as earlier this week Musk tweeted three derogatory comments about Mastodon before deleting the posts.

Where does it come from?

Launched in 2016, Mastodon is the brainchild of software developer Eugen Rochko, who describes it as a “free, open-source decentralised social media platform” that wants to “a viable alternative to Twitter”.