Twitter Users Flock to Other Platforms as the Elon Era Begins

A writer who is part of a trans community on social media started a Discord server a week before Musk closed his deal. She hoped her server would be an interesting experiment, but she didn't know if Musk was going to buy or destroy the social networking site. The server could become a safe place for the community of trans people she has cultivated over the past decade.

There isn't anything that can replace it. There is no one who has whatTwitter has. For her, it was a place for trans people to meet, to date, and to post with anonymity if they are afraid of harassment or still exploring their identity and don't want to share photos or videos. She needs the platform for her work but she is rebuilding a smaller version of her community on a forum that feels safer after Musk took over.

LaBelle says that disagreement isn't going to be on social networking sites. We are being chased by fascists and so I am going to grab all of the people in my circle and run in the other direction.

LaBelle is one of many who are worried about the chaos that could be caused by Musk. One of the reasons Musk bought the platform was to roll back moderation rules. It feels like an invitation to spread more hatred and harassment for people like LaBelle who come from marginalized groups.

No major decisions would be made until Musk had convened a council of people with widely diverse viewpoints on moderation. Some users are planning to flee in protest because they don't want to give away their free content to a platform owned by the world's richest person.

Many people with reservations about Musk's takeover are making plans similar to LaBelle's. They are giving out information to their followers in order to find them on a platform like Mastodon.

Mastodon is getting a boost from speculation about the new owner. Eugen Rochko, the platform's CEO, says 18,000 people signed up for Mastodon accounts in a single day. It had over three hundred thousand active users as of October 28. Mastodon is being used a lot by people who announce new Mastodon accounts.

Many people said they weren't ready to abandon Twitter entirely but had set up Mastodon accounts in anticipation of the changes. There are people who put their new Mastodon profiles in their bios. As more and more people are announcing their new profiles, the company wrote that it looks like #Mastodon is a popular topic on the social networking site.