Plagued by mistakes, without half of the employees and with an idiosyncratic new owner who changes the rules at will, Twitter is developing from a social media platform that you should definitely use to a platform that many people - including scientists - shy away from. Other social networking platforms that offer similar features are already in the starting blocks to intercept the users who are now turning their backs on Twitter. First and foremost Mastodon, an open source alternative that was launched in 2016 by the German software developer Eugen Rochko. Supported by the positive coverage, the service has become the most popular Twitter alternative in recent days. From October 27 to November 10, 2022 alone, around half a million new users joined Mastodon, which roughly corresponds to a doubling of its user base.
While Twitter users are wondering whether and when they should dare to jump, the magazine "Nature" has examined the advantages and disadvantages especially for researchers.
What is mastodon and how does it differ from Twitter?
Mastodon is an open source microblogging platform. The service was named after an extinct, elephant-like creature that last lived on Earth more than 10,000 years ago. The main difference between Mastodon and Twitter is that Twitter is centrally controlled by a single company, while Mastodon has a decentralized structure.
This means that individuals or organizations can set up a server (a so -called instance) and host users on them. These servers often represent geographical regions or areas of interest. As soon as you have joined a server, users can chat with other people on this server or post the entire "Fedive". News that are written on most servers can be read by the entire mastodon community, unless a user has decided against it.
In contrast to Twitter, where messages are limited to 280 characters, Mastodon offers up to 11,000 characters per message, depending on the server instance, which is called "toot" or translated "Tröt" (by default, however, it is 500 characters per message). Another difference is how users encounter content: Twitter's algorithmic recommendations are not found on Mastodon. What users see depends on who they follow and what these people share.
What do the scientists think of mastodon so far from the service?
Until the recent influx, the Mastodon community was small and carefully curated – and consisted mostly of hobbyists with a geeky slant. For this reason, the interactions on Mastodon are a little different from those on Twitter. "Mastodon is really great for conversation and seems a lot more intimate," says Catherine Flick, who conducts research on computers and social responsibility at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK.
"If you get to mastodon, it is a bit like you're going to drink something after a conference," says Flick. “You come into conversation with everyone; With people who understand the academic world and the basic rules for academic conversations. ”She compares it with Twitter, where you have the feeling that everyone can listen and watch the world. Ian Brown, cyber security researcher at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, believes that a considerable number of mastodone users are academics.
Since users are divided into different servers, Mastodon also makes it easier for them to talk to like-minded people. "When I go on Twitter, it's more performative," Flick says. "There is a natural state of conversation on Mastodon.«
However, it is unclear whether this will stay the case in the long term. For example, there were tensions on mastodone caused by the newcomers, many of which brought their habits of Twitter. Journalists who are used to sharing their work with others without all too often in conversations have been admonished by long-established users, and some early mastodon users fear that the newcomers will change the forms of handling so that they will change them Resemble Twitter more.
What are the disadvantages of mastodon?
One of Twitter's strengths that Mastodon doesn't reflect as well is the ability for users to send their messages to a large number of people, Brown says. This is important for scientists who want to share their research results with a large, non-specialized audience. "This is one of the really democratizing effects of Twitter and social media in general," he notes.
It is also possible on mastodon to write contributions that go viral if enough people reposten a toot. However, the entire platform is more designed to have like -minded people and not so much to achieve a large number of people. The "quote tweet", which enables users to share an additional comment, does not exist on Mastodon.
For researchers who are used to the criticism of the academic world that often comes with quoted tweets, Mastodon can be refreshing, Brown says. But it is also a challenge to prove that one's own research has a public impact if one preaches only to those already converted, he adds. "I suspect this is a matter of critical mass," says Flick, who believes that will change over time as more people sign up.
What else can be said about mastodon?
In addition to the already mentioned, there are other points that could give users to think. Mastodon conversations categorize conversations much more frequently as Twitter, which is partly due to the fact that there are no recommendations from an algorithm. Due to the technical architecture of the platform, however, there is no obvious way to categorize conversations about a certain scientific work using a Doi reference as a hashtag. (A user reported the problem and asked to introduce this function).
For this reason, Brown at least recommends that scientists who switch to Mastodon not immediately delete their Twitter accounts in a hurry. So at least you can continue to use both services.
