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.
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:
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.
An ever growing problem of the modern social media-rich world is misinformation. The trust that was previously placed into government officials and journalism has eroded; the internet gave everyone a voice but with it made it so much more difficult to distinguish truth from fabrication. The consequences of this are very real: Almost eradicated illnesses are making a comeback because people refuse to vaccinate their children, Covid-19 is continuing to spread because people refuse to wear masks and practice social distancing, more and more people start believing that the Earth is flat and descend down a rabbit hole of ever more absurd conspiracy theories.
After crowdfunding millions of dollars, social media platform Gab abandoned its own code and switched to the freely available Mastodon software in early 2019 as a way of circumventing Google’s and Apple’s ban on their own app from their app stores, since offering Mastodon’s client-side API would allow any existing Mastodon app to be used to access Gab. We have never had any sympathy for their thinly (if at all) veiled white supremacist platform so that was not a welcome move on our part, however the license that we publish our software under (AGPLv3) allows anyone to use it as they see fit as long as they keep the same license and make their modifications public.
