Twitter’s Post Limit Sparks Surge in Mastodon Traffic

A day after Twitter imposed new limits on the number of posts users can view (based on their verification status), Mastodon reported a significant increase in traffic.

The platform’s active user base increased by at least 110,000, according to a July 2 post by Mastodon’s founder and CEO, Eugen Rochko. Mastodon is a German competitor to Twitter with a tweet-like structure, though it emphasizes being user-driven and decentralized.

Mastodon operates on a network of thousands of dispersed computer servers and is predominantly administered by volunteers, whereas Twitter is governed by a single entity.

Rochko also thanked the Mastodon team for “coming to help with the infrastructure despite it being a Sunday” and reposted several messages from long-time users and Mastodon developers, including one with advice for new users:

Courtney Heard concluded her post by stating that once users curate their feed, “it’s so much more vibrant and rewarding than Twitter has been for the past year.”

Mastodon had 324,000 active users at the time of this writing. The increase in activity on Mastodon follows the announcement by Elon Musk, the proprietor and former CEO of Twitter, that the platform would impose new limits on the number of posts users can read per day.

According to Musk’s new restrictions, verified Twitter accounts will be permitted to view 10,000 posts per day, while unverified accounts will be limited to 500.

Musk did not cite a specific reason for the new restrictions, but he tweeted that “so much data was being stolen from the platform that it was degrading service for regular users.”

Recent data has also disclosed an alarming number of phony Twitter accounts in numerous communities.