Mastodon gained 70,000 users after Musk’s Twitter takeover. I joined them

The platform is home to a devoted base of left-leaning communities - and no one billionaire can control it

Since Elon Musk completed his purchase of Twitter last week, some of the social media app's users have been looking for a new home - only to find there aren't many great options. Twitter's co-founder Jack Dorsey is beta testing a new app called Bluesky, but there's no launch date yet.

However, tech-savvy users are rallying around Mastodon, a six-year-old social media platform popular among a devoted base of left-leaning niche communities. Mastodon, named after the extinct tusked animal, is decentralized, which means it can't be controlled by a single corporation or space billionaire. That's clearly appealing to the flood of users who have signed up since Musk's Twitter takeover, with more than 70,000 users joining Mastodon on the day after his announcement alone.