[The open-source platform has added nearly half a million users in
little more than a week — but should scientists make the leap? We
examine the pros and cons.]
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SHOULD I JOIN MASTODON? A SCIENTISTS’ GUIDE TO TWITTER’S RIVAL  
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Chris Stokel-Walker
November 10, 2022
Nature [[link removed]]

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_ The open-source platform has added nearly half a million users in
little more than a week — but should scientists make the leap? We
examine the pros and cons. _

Mastodon has seen an influx of new users since Elon Musk took over
Twitter., Credit: Davide Bonaldo/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty

 

Beset by bugs, shorn of around half of its staff and with
an idiosyncratic new owner
[[link removed]] who is changing
the rules on a whim, Twitter is turning from a must-use social-media
platform into one that many people, including scientists, are becoming
wary of.

A raft of other social-networking platforms are cropping up in its
place, offering similar functionalities. Chief among them is Mastodon
[[link removed]], an open-source alternative created by
German software developer Eugen Rochko in 2016. Bolstered by positive
news coverage, it’s becoming the most popular alternative to
Twitter. Since 27 October, almost half a million new users have
flocked to the service, roughly doubling its user base.

As Twitter users wonder whether, and when, they should make the
leap, _Nature_ looks at the benefits and drawbacks for researchers.

What is Mastodon and how is it different from Twitter?

Named after an extinct elephant-like creature that last walked Earth
more than 10,000 years ago, Mastodon is an open-source microblogging
platform. The main difference between Mastodon and Twitter is that
whereas Twitter is centrally controlled by a single company, Mastodon
is decentralized.

This means that individuals or organizations can set up a server
(called an instance) and host users on it. Those servers often
represent geographical locations or areas of interest. Once they have
joined a server, users can chat with others on that server, or post
into the federated universe (or fediverse). Messages posted to most
servers can be read by the wider Mastodon community, unless a user
opts out.

Unlike Twitter, where missives are limited to 280 characters, you can
post up to 11,000 characters in a single Mastodon message — known as
a toot. Another difference is how users encounter content: Twitter’s
algorithmic recommendations are nowhere to be seen on Mastodon. Who
you follow and what they share dictates what you see.

What do scientists on Mastodon think of it so far?

Until the recent influx, the Mastodon community has been small and
carefully curated — and mostly made up of hobbyists with a geekish
bent. Because of this, interactions on Mastodon feel a bit different
from those on Twitter. “Mastodon is really great for conversations,
and it seems a lot more intimate,” says Catherine Flick, who
researches computing and social responsibility at De Montfort
University in Leicester, UK.

“Coming into Mastodon is a bit like going for drinks after a
conference,” says Flick. “You get to chat to everybody; people who
understand academia and the ground rules for academic
conversations.” She compares it favourably with Twitter, where it
feels like everyone is listening in and the world is watching. Ian
Brown, a cybersecurity researcher at Getúlio Vargas Foundation in Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil, thinks that a considerable number of Mastodon
users are probably academics.

Because people tend to subdivide into distinct servers, Mastodon also
makes it easier for users to speak to like-minded people. “When I go
on Twitter, it’s more performative,” says Flick. “On Mastodon,
it’s a natural state of conversation.”

That conversation comes with caveats, however. There has been tension
on Mastodon caused by the new arrivals, many of whom bring habits
formed on Twitter. Journalists who are used to sharing their work
without engaging too often in conversation have been chastised by
longer-term users
[[link removed]], and some early
Mastodon adopters fear that the new arrivals will shift the etiquette
to be more robust, similar to that on Twitter.

What are the downsides for researchers?

One of Twitter’s strengths that Mastodon is not replicating as well
is users’ ability to broadcast their message to a wide range of
people, says Brown. This is important for scientists who are
interested in communicating their research to large, non-specialist
audiences. “That’s one of the really democratizing effects of
Twitter and social media more broadly,” he notes.

It is possible to go viral on Mastodon, if enough people repost your
toots. But the whole platform is set up for conversation among peers,
rather than for reaching a large number of people — something that
the academic community has noticed and is discussing
[[link removed]]. The
‘quote tweet’, which allows users to reshare a post with an added
comment, does not exist on Mastodon.

For researchers who are used to the criticisms of academia that often
come with quoted tweets, Mastodon can be refreshing, says Brown. But
it’s also a challenge to prove that your research has a public
impact when you’re preaching to the converted, he adds. “I suspect
that’s a critical-mass thing,” says Flick, who thinks that this
will change over time as more people sign up.

Anything else?

There are other issues that might give users pause. Mastodon
categorizes conversations around hashtags much more frequently than
Twitter, partly because of its lack of algorithmic recommendations.
But there isn’t an obvious way to corral conversations about a
particular academic paper, using a DOI reference as a hashtag, because
of the way that the platform’s technical architecture works. (A user
has reported the issue
[[link removed]] and has asked for
the functionality to be introduced.)

For that reason, Brown suggests that scientists switching to Mastodon
don’t rush to delete their Twitter accounts. “At the very least,
they might still use both services,” he says.

_doi: [link removed]

_CHRIS STOKEL-WALKER is a news and features freelance journalist whose
work appears in The Times & Sunday Times, The Economist, Bloomberg,
the BBC and WIRED, among others, specializing in digital culture and
YouTube._

_NATURE is a weekly international journal publishing the finest
peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the
basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest,
timeliness, accessibility, elegance and surprising
conclusions. Nature also provides rapid, authoritative, insightful
and arresting news and interpretation of topical and coming trends
affecting science, scientists and the wider public. Subscribe to
NATURE HERE. [[link removed]]_

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