Updates from the Mastodon team
A new onboarding experience on Mastodon
Today we’re making signing up on Mastodon easier than ever before. We understand that deciding which Mastodon service provider to kick off your experience with can be confusing. We know this is a completely new concept for many people, since traditionally the platform and the service provider are one and the same. This choice is what makes Mastodon different from existing social networks, but it also presents a unique onboarding challenge. To make this step easier, we now have a default sign-up option that works with a server we operate. If you wish to leave or join a different server, you can do so at any time.
Eugen Rochko
CEO / Founder
Twitter suspends Mastodon account, prevents sharing links
On Dec 16, Twitter suspended our @joinmastodon account after we shared a link to the newly registered Mastodon account of @ElonJet, an account that broadcasts public flight path data of Elon Musk’s private jet, which was previously suspended from Twitter itself. At the same time, accounts of multiple journalists from major publications such as CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, as well as various independent journalists, were likewise suspended for either linking to the account itself or talking about the event. We also started receiving reports that users were unable to tweet links to any Mastodon servers, including ones completely unrelated to the @ElonJet account, encountering an error message claiming that the links were identified as “potentially harmful”, among them George Takei, making it more difficult for people to share their Mastodon profiles.
Eugen Rochko
CEO / Founder
New website launch
We teamed up with the design agency Oak to give our project a modern and professional presence--and we have succeeded!
Eugen Rochko
CEO / Founder
Mastodon branding updates
We are teaming up with the design agency Oak to update our homepage and our brand. Goodbye social media blue, hello vibrant purple!
Eugen Rochko
CEO / Founder
Twitter buyout puts Mastodon into spotlight
The news of Elon Musk buying Twitter has put Mastodon into the public spotlight as an alternative social network, rapidly exploding our growth with over 30,000 new users in just a single day. This is because at Mastodon, we present a vision of social media that cannot be bought and owned by any billionaire, and strive to create a more resilient global platform without profit incentives. We believe that your ability to communicate online should not be at the whims of a single commercial company.
Eugen Rochko
CEO / Founder
Official Mastodon for Android app is coming soon
We are developing an official Android app which will be free and focused on helping new users get started on the fediverse
Eugen Rochko
CEO / Founder
Trump's new social media platform found using Mastodon code
From media reports and individual findings that various people have presented to us, it seems that the new social media platform owned by the former president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, so-called Truth Social, is using Mastodon’s source code with various visual adjustments. The platform has not formally launched yet, but it was made accessible ahead of time. Users were quick to note that the terms of service included a worrying passage, claiming that the site is proprietary property and all source code and software are owned or controlled by them or licensed to them:
Eugen Rochko
CEO / Founder
EUNOMIA public pilot launch
On behalf of the EUNOMIA project, in which I represent Mastodon, I am happy to announce that after nearly 3 years of development there is now a public pilot for the Mastodon community. But first, what is EUNOMIA and who is EUNOMIA? EUNOMIA is a “digital companion” for social media, a set of additional functions that aim to combat the spread of misinformation by helping you critically analyze social media posts before re-sharing them. Currently available functions include:
Eugen Rochko
CEO / Founder
Mastodon now a non-profit organisation
In June, I was able to officially register Mastodon gGmbH after nearly 8 months of legal work (“gGmbH” means “non-profit limited liability company”). A non-profit limited liability company in Germany is structered and operates similarly to a for-profit limited liability company with a few key differences. The founding document of the company is written such that the activity of the company is working towards goals that benefit the public; the shareholders may not receive any revenue from the company’s activities and can at most withdraw the funds that they originally paid in; employees may not receive extraordinarily high wages; and the company can receive donations which are then tax-free, although any other income that does not fit the definition of a donation continues to incur various taxes. To found such a legal entity the founding document must pass a review by the German tax office and the founders must pay in 25,000 EUR of starting capital.
Eugen Rochko
CEO / Founder