Elon Musk mocks people signing up to Twitter alternative Mastodon

TWITTER THE FUTURE (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Elon Musk has seemingly mocked Mastodon, the alternative site that many have embraced as they look to move away from Twitter.

In the days since Mr Musk took over Twitter, he has prompted outcry over new policy and feature decisions. They have included the suggestion that content moderation could change significantly, as well as pushing forward with a fee of $8 per month to receive the blue checkmark that has previously indicated a users’ identity has been verified.

Amid that outcry, many high-profile users have already left the site, or threatened to leave. Some of them have moved onto Mastodon, an open source alternative to Twitter that has seen vast numbers of registrations in recent days.

But Mr Musk appeared to mock those who were switching over, referring to the site as “Masterbatedone”. He highlighted posts by US economist Paul Krugman, who appeared to have encountered technical problems when he signed up to the service.

Mastodon has been hit by a number of technical issues amid the flurry of sign-ups to the site. It is also far less straightforward than Twitter, since it requires users to sign up to a server in order to post.

Mr Krugman had also shared his issues with using the site on his Twitter account.

The site has signed up 230,000 users in the last week, with many registering in case further moves at Twitter force them to leave it.

A full guide to signing up for the service can be found here.

Mr Musk has taken an adversarial approach to those criticising his leadership of Twitter, even before he officially took over in that role. That has led him to having public arguments with politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the company banning comedian Kathy Griffin after she impersonated him.