|
|
|
Why Twitter's rival social network Mastodon trending in India
|
|
|
|
Top Stories |
|
|
|
|
SME Times News Bureau | 08 Nov, 2019
Mastodon, a little known micro-blogging platform first released in 2016,
has suddenly sparked interest among disgruntled Twitter users.
Some
of these users who have accused Twitter of discriminating against the
marginalised claimed that they have already created Mastodon accounts
for saner conversations.
"I have mentioned my #Mastodon account
here. If you have a Mastodon account please follow me. Let's get out of
this toxic Twitter," said one user.
"Because @TwitterIndia is
suppressing dissent, selectively suspending liberal accounts, throttling
the reach while taking no action against those who are spreading
hate/violence, many folks have migrated to #Mastodon," wrote another
user.
As rumours about Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and
Priyanka Gandhi opening accounts on Mastodon also circulated on social
media, the party came out with a tweet to put speculation to rest.
"This
is to clarify that the accounts of Shri @RahulGandhi, Smt.
@priyankagandhi or that of INC India on Social Media platform, Mastodon
are not authentic," the official Twitter account of the Congress party
said on Friday.
Mastodon allows users to do many things that one
can do on Twitter - publish posts and follow others. But compared to
Twitter's over 300 million users, it has just about 2.2 million users.
But getting into this decentralised and open source network is not as easy as opening a Twitter account.
Created by Eugen Rochko, who is now 26 years old, Mastodon is made up of many servers and all of them can have their own rules.
As
Rochko explained in an interview to web and podcast network magazine
Slate last year, Mastodon is a "federated platform" - a collection of
servers and websites.
"Centralisation is not just centralisation
of power, but centralisation of data as well. So the more data a
platform like Facebook collects it's all in one place. It's easy to
access and to analyse," Rochko was quoted as saying.
"With
Mastodon, the data is separated. Every server stores only the data of
its local signed-up users and the data that they subscribe to from their
friends. If you take the data just from one server, you don't have a
lot," Rochko added.
The interest in Mastodon increased in India after Twitter found itself in the midst of a controversy surrounding its rules.
The
row started after the accounts of a number of Twitter users, including
the account of senior lawyer Sanjay Hegde, were suspended or curtailed.
Apart
from Hegde, senior columnist Dilip C. Mandal got briefly restricted.
But Mandal continued the tirade against Twitter. As others joined him, a
flurry of tweets followed under #CasteistTwitter, #JaiBhimTwitter and
#cancelallBlueTicksinIndia over the course of this week.
Twitter
India on Thursday said that it is an impartial platform and does not
take action based upon any ideology or political viewpoint.
"There's
been a lot of discussion this week about Twitter's perceived bias in
India. To be clear, whether it's the development of policies, product
features, or enforcement of our rules, we are impartial and do not take
action based upon any ideology or political viewpoint," Twitter India
said.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Customs Exchange Rates |
Currency |
Import |
Export |
US Dollar
|
66.20
|
64.50 |
UK Pound
|
87.50
|
84.65 |
Euro
|
78.25
|
75.65 |
Japanese
Yen |
58.85 |
56.85 |
As on 13 Aug, 2022 |
|
|
Daily Poll |
|
|
PM Modi's recent US visit to redefine India-US bilateral relations |
|
|
|
|
|
Commented Stories |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|