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A timely TIME interview with Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko   ā†¦

Apropos of nothing šŸ˜‰

Mastodon, a decentralized microblogging site named after an extinct type of mammoth, recorded 120,000 new users in the four days following billionaire Elon Muskā€™s acquisition of Twitter, its German-born founder Eugen Rochko tells TIME. Many of them were Twitter users seeking a new place to call their online home.

Those users, whether they knew it or not, were following in the footsteps of Rochko, 29, who began coding Mastodon in 2016 after becoming disillusioned with Twitter. ā€œI was thinking that being able to express myself online to my friends through short messages was very important to me, important also to the world, and that maybe it should not be in the hands of a single corporation,ā€ Rochko says. ā€œIt was generally related to a feeling of distrust of the top down control that Twitter exercised.ā€

Adam and I first spoke with Eugen in 2018 (before it was cool) and even signed up on his instance, but havenā€™t started posting thereā€¦ yet. Iā€™m a bit skeptical of its ability to scale beyond technologist circles. But maybe thatā€™s okay?


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