Forwarded message:
> From: Monty Solomon <[email protected]> > To: Richard Forno <[email protected]> > Subject: The Man Behind Mastodon, Eugen Rochko, Built It for This Moment > Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2022 21:09:02 -0500 > > The Man Behind Mastodon Built It for This Moment > > People fleeing Twitter have turned to Eugen Rochko’s alternative. He says > social networks can support healthy debate—without any one person in control. > > Eugen Rochko looks exhausted. The 29-year-old German programmer is the > founder of Mastodon, a distributed alternative to Twitter that has exploded > in popularity in recent weeks as Elon Musk’s ownership of the platform has > rained chaos on its users. > > Rochko began developing Mastodon shortly after leaving university in 2016. He > was a fan of Twitter but wanted to create a platform not controlled by any > single company or person, reasoning that online communication is too > important to be at the whim of commercial interests or CEOs. He believed that > the lack of profit motive and canny design could discourage harassment and > abuse, and provide users more control. > > Instead of creating a single unified platform, the Mastodon protocol allows > anyone to use open-source software to boot up a server that hosts a > Twitter-style community with its own rules. Together those servers form a > collective of interlinked communities dubbed the “Fediverse.” People can join > a server that matches their interests and community standards, but also > connect with users on other servers, or block all content from a particular > server completely. > > Mastodon grew slowly after the first code was released in 2017, appealing > mostly to free software enthusiasts. Then Elon Musk took control of Twitter > for $44 billion. His promises to weaken moderation, deep staff cuts, and > chaotic changes to the platform turned many dedicated Twitter users off the > platform. In the past few weeks, Rochko says, some 800,000 new Mastodon > accounts have been created, overwhelming popular servers and flooding > existing users’ timelines with introductions, questions, and complaints from > newbies. Last year, donations to the nonprofit that runs Mastodon and where > Rochko is CEO totaled 55,000 euros; it spent only 23,000 euros. > > Since Musk took over Twitter, Rochko has been working long hours to keep his > own server, Mastodon.Social, running, while also preparing a major upgrade to > Mastodon, but he took time to videochat with WIRED from his home in Germany. > The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. > > ... > > https://www.wired.com/story/the-man-behind-mastodon-eugen-rochko-built-it-for-this-moment/ -- Iw mailing list [email protected] http://sticklist.org/mailman/listinfo/iw_sticklist.org
