Twitter Rival Mastodon Turns Down Silicon Valley Funding Offers

“Mastodon will not turn into everything you hate about Twitter,” founder Eugen Rochko says

mastodon
Mastodon (Getty Images)

Twitter rival Mastodon has turned down more than five funding offers from Silicon Valley in recent months, as the crowdfunded, open-source social media platform aims to remain a non profit.

German software developer Eugen Rochko, who founded the platform in 2016, told The Financial Times he’s gotten offers from multiple US-based investors dangling “hundreds of thousands of dollars” since drawing a surge of users after Elon Musk bought Twitter in October for $44 billion.

But Rochko said the platform’s non-profit status was “untouchable,” the report said. He insisted Mastodon’s independence and moderation style is part of its appeal.

“Mastodon will not turn into everything you hate about Twitter,” Rochko told The FT. “The fact that it can be sold to a controversial billionaire, the fact that it can be shut down, go bankrupt and so on. It’s the difference in paradigms [between the platforms].”

Instead, Mastodon will continue to rely on donations.

The site has more than 8,500 donors on the membership platform Patreon, through which it is raising over $30,000 per month, according to The FT. That compares with total earnings of about $66,200 in the six months from June to December 2021.

Rochko, Mastodon’s sole shareholder, told the outlet he earns about $3,200 a month.

Daily downloads of Mastodon rose to a peak of 243,000 on Nov. 18, from 6,000 on Oct. 27, the day Musk acquired Twitter, The FT reported, citing data from Sensor Tower.

Other social platforms, including Tumblr, have also seen usage skyrocket amid Musk’s erratic leadership of Twitter though Musk claims usage is at “all-time highs.”

Mastodon’s Twitter account was temporarily suspended earlier this month at the same time as a number of journalists were shut down, many of whom covered the hubbub over an account that tracked Musk’s jet, also lost access to their accounts.

Twitter also started to ban links to other social media platforms, including Mastodon, but later reversed that edict.

Rochko said in a blog post responding to the suspension that it was a “stark reminder that centralized platforms can impose arbitrary and unfair limits on what you can and can’t say,” The FT reported.

Unlike Twitter, Mastodon is made up of decentralized, independently moderated servers. Users join one server but can connect with people on others, The FT said, though moderation can vary from server to server, which has created confusion for some new users.

Rochko told the FT he hopes Mastodon some day replaces Twitter and other commercial social networks. “It’s a long road ahead but at the same time, it’s bigger than it ever has been.”

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