In the wake of Twitter’s introduction of new restrictions on user post viewing, Mastodon, its competitor, recorded a substantial increase in user traffic.

Following the implementation of new post visibility restrictions on Twitter users, based on their verification status, Mastodon, the competing social media platform, saw a marked increase in traffic, as reported on July 2 by Mastodon founder and CEO, Eugen Rochko. The platform’s active user base witnessed a minimum surge of 110,000.

Mastodon, a German alternative to Twitter, shares a similar tweet-like structure but emphasizes its user-driven and decentralized nature. Unlike Twitter, which is centrally controlled, Mastodon operates through a network of thousands of distributed servers and is mainly overseen by volunteers.

Rochko extended his gratitude to the Mastodon team for assisting with the infrastructure, despite it being a Sunday. He also shared various messages from seasoned users and Mastodon developers, one of which offered advice to newcomers:

“Make an effort to follow as many individuals and hashtags as possible. Unlike Twitter, Mastodon lacks an algorithm that fills your feed with suggested content. The onus is on you to curate your own feed.”

Courtney Heard, the user who offered this advice, concluded her post by stating that after users have curated their feeds, they would find it “much more vibrant and rewarding than Twitter has been for a year.” As of the time of the report, Mastodon claimed 324,000 active users.

This surge in Mastodon activity followed the announcement made by Elon Musk, Twitter’s owner and former CEO, regarding new limits on the number of posts accounts can view in a day.

According to Musk’s newly established rules, verified Twitter users will have a daily viewing limit of 10,000 posts, whereas new and unverified users will be capped at 500.

Musk did not provide a specific rationale for these new restrictions but mentioned via a tweet that the platform was experiencing extensive data pillaging, affecting the service quality for regular users.

Moreover, recent statistics have uncovered a disturbing prevalence of fake accounts within numerous Twitter communities.