Eugen Rochko was, by his own admission, a heavy user of Twitter.
But something didn’t sit right with him. The 29-year-old from Thuringia didn’t like the idea that one person, or company, could own and control what he viewed as a public utility.
In 2016, when rumours were spreading that PayPal founder Peter Thiel wanted to buy Twitter, Rochko set about creating his own decentralised social network.
What emerged was Mastodon, a so-called “Twitter killer”. Six years since its launch, the network has made Rochko an unlikely hero for thousands of Twitter defectors. Many are unhappy with Elon Musk’s $44bn (£38.4bn) purchase of Twitter, with concerns ranging from the billionaire’s stance on free speech to his plan to let people pay for verification check marks.
Mastodon’s main functions are similar to Twitter. Instead of posting tweets, users write 500-character “toots”. They don’t share others’ messages by re-tweeting them, they “boost” them. Buttons and icons are in similar places.
But unlike Twitter, users register their accounts on different servers, each of which are run independently with their own content rules. The servers are themed by interests, such as hobbies or countries, and users are still allowed to follow users on other servers.
Rochko, who moved to Germany from Russia when he was 11, has been outspoken in his criticism of Musk. “The man is not entirely comprehensible,” he told Time magazine. “I don’t agree with a lot of his behaviours and his decision-making.
“I think that buying Twitter was an impulse decision that he soon regretted. And that he basically got himself into a situation that kind of forced him to commit to the deal. And now he’s in it, and he has to deal with the fallout.”
Musk and Rochko make an unusual pair to be at loggerheads in the hyper-competitive world of social media.
