Twitter India users are leaving to ‘create their own social media’ platform on Mastodon

• Angry Twitter users are leaving the platform for alleged caste-based biases.
• They are instead joining the open source social media platform Mastodon.
• The platform was created by German coder Eugen Rochko in 2016 and has a tagline – Social networking, back in your hands.

Twitter India is in trouble again. This time around, its Indian users are leaving the platform join Mastodon – an open source social media platform.

A large number of users are suspending their accounts and accusing Twitter of discrimination.

A much lesser known Mastodon is gaining from the anger. The open source platform allows users to create their own communities through their own servers.

Mastodon is a decentralised platform, not owned by anyone. As it doesn’t allow advertising, monetizing, or venture capital, the platform accepts donations.

The platform was created by German coder Eugen Rochko in 2016 and has a tagline – Social networking, back in your hands.

It allows users to publish text, images, links, videos etc. It also promises a safer social media environment.

“Twitter forces you to choose between two extremes, a protected account and a fully public account. If you have a public account, all your tweets are visible to everyone and infinitely shareable. Mastodon realizes that it’s not something you might always want though,” the website quotes Rochko.

So Mastodon has four options instead – fully public, unlisted (appearing to your followers and anyone looking at your profile, but not on public timelines), private (appearing only to your followers and people mentioned in it) and direct (appearing only to people mentioned in it).

What went wrong with Twitter

Twitter India is alleged of showing bias based on caste. Multiple prominent accounts of Dalit, Bahujan, and Adivasi (DBA) communities have suspended their accounts.

The movement started after the account of a senior columnist Dilip C Mandal was restricted by the social media giant. Though he got his account back, Twitter users began pointing out the disparity on the social media platform.

"There's been a lot of discussion this week about Twitter's perceived bias in India. To be clear, whether it's the development of policies, product features, or enforcement of our rules, we are impartial and do not take action based upon any ideology or political viewpoint," Twitter India said in a statement.

The social media giant further added that in its training, they extensively cover topics such as religion and caste to provide teams with necessary local context they need to evaluate content.

Regarding the verification process, Twitter India said their public verification process is closed.

“While we are reviewing the entire program, on a limited case-by-case basis we do verify public figures who are active in the public conversation,” the company said.

See Also:
Twitter accused of discriminating against SC, ST and OBCs