As Twitter stumbles, Mastodon launches improved Android app
In the wake of Twitter's controversial move to limit tweet visibility and introduce breaking changes to TweetDeck, Mastodon, an open-source Twitter alternative, is making headlines with a significant refresh of its Android app. Released over the weekend, this update manifests a full-scale adaptation of Material You — Google’s design language for Android — and an overhaul of several features including tab bars, settings, and the compose screen.
Mastodon's Founder and CEO, Eugen Rochko, heralded the update on the Mastodon blog. The social networking platform, encompassing mobile apps, web version, and third-party clients, now boasts an active user base of 1.4 million monthly active users, as per the company’s internal data. Notably, this represents a 19% uptick, albeit lower than the platform's peak user engagement following Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, which had sparked 2.5 million monthly users.
Rochko recently shared that Mastodon's active users surged by 294,000 over the weekend, with posting activity nearly tripling, potentially triggered by Twitter's ongoing issues.
Mastodon's new Android app brings a cornucopia of customization options in the revamped settings screen. Users can modify the default posting language, add alternative text to media uploads, and even control visibility of the "boost" and "favorite" counters — Mastodon's equivalent of Twitter's retweet feature. Android users can now also access server-specific information and its associated rules — a crucial aspect of Mastodon's decentralized social networking infrastructure, where each federated server maintains its unique moderation guidelines.
The update breathes new life into the user profile section of the Android app, introducing featured content previously absent from the app, including pinned posts, featured hashtags, and endorsed users. An additional feature now enables users to filter content using keyword-based filters and customize the application of these filters. Furthermore, users can mute notifications temporarily, creating periods of digital respite.
Mastodon has also altered the way it handles user verifications. Instead of adopting the conventional "blue badge," users can self-verify by interlinking their websites and Mastodon profiles. This methodology aims to corroborate a user's broader identity across the web. Verified profiles are now more readily visible in search results, thereby addressing user complaints about the difficulty of finding notable Mastodon profiles.
Where to download Mastodon?
Android users can access the updated app via Google Play Store. However, alternatives such as Tusky, Megalodon, Fedilab, Tooot, among others, are also available. Conversely, iOS users enjoy a broader selection including Woolly, Mammoth, Radiant, and Ivory — all products of the Twitter exodus post Musk’s acquisition and consequential API changes that essentially terminated Twitter apps. Given the scarcity of third-party options for Android, the recent update to Mastodon’s official mobile app assumes greater significance for the Android user base compared to its impact on iOS.
While Twitter faces turbulence, Mastodon's rejuvenated Android app may just be a sign that the open-source platform is ready to claim its place in the social media sphere, striking a chord with users who appreciate privacy, transparency, and customization.
Read also: Twitter makes TweetDeck more exclusive
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Mastodon… in general a nice system.. BUT…
Without any joking around, that platform is populated by Capitalism hating, police hating, nation hating and Western civilization hating Communists, Anarchists, Progressives and so on….
Important… Everyone is FREE to believe whatever one wants, but Mastodon related Fediverse instances are pretty quick in silencing ANYONE who has a different opinion than theirs. This does not only including deleting users accounts, it also includes full instance blocking as soon as some server owners discover that a more Conservative server is federating towards them.
That is my main issue – not the various ideologies to be found, but the massive censorship and hate for free speech and freedom of expression. It clearly shows that also a wonderful system which is non-mainstream can be damaged when radicals take over.
Luckily there exists the Pleroma side of the Fediverse – which is more diverse and open in opinions. On the other side, one could argue that social media is anyway a waste of time. My personal opinion.
@Sajadi
Yo Sajadi, how’s the weather in Confederate America!
@Yash It is worth to go even THAT far – Who is free willingly calling themselves a Communist/Socialist/Anarchist (Liberals/Progressives) makes themselves being guilty of all the atrocities Communists have caused and still cause. Including that horrible despicable genocide against the Ukrainian people and the rising massive anti-semitism caused and supported by both Progressives/Liberals and their special protected group of Islamists.
Nothing of which one should be proud right?
@Sajadi
Absolutely communists like Putin is a shame on society. I do wonder what are the opiniona of real patriots of America – Republican Party? The party opposite of Communism. Oh no! they fully support Putin and not just in America, far left and far right parties in France, Germany, Poland and other parties side with Putin. Maybe it isn’t about left vs right. Maybe it is more about people who are chill and just want to live their life and enjoy it vs absolute loons who try to control other people’s lives in the name of communism/republican party and what not.
Again I ask you how’s the weather in confederate America!
And comments from @yash shows how far left a big amount of Liberals aka Progressives today have moved, while on the other side, Libertarians, Centrists and Conservatives have not moved much. In earlier times people like me would have easily fallen under the category Liberals/Progressives. For your information, i do not vote for anyone on the left OR anyone on the right. I am fully apolitical and neutral.
Who hits such a morally low threshold to even call neutral people far right, belongs to the very same category of which these people accuse all the one’s to be who refuse to be on “their side”.
Also – In times where being Communist is literally being normalized – being called Nazi/Confederate/Bigot means literally nothing. Especially seeing how much crimes your ideology has also caused and is STILL causing – Muslims enslaved and brainwashed in China, the own people starved to death in North Korea. And last but not least do not forget mentioning your comrade Vladimir Putin.
Sickening! Again, clean your own door first, thanks!
@Sajadi. Good post. And good reply to ECJ, shows why a system like Mastodon will never be an open space and work for everyone. Only for like minded people that constantly pat each other on the back, i.e not a normal social media. Again proving that that the typical progressives and their “inclusivness” is just the opposite, people need to change their mind-set to theirs or else be excluded.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230610154356/https://www.ghacks.net/2023/06/08/vivaldi-web-browser-review/#comment-4567800
Which is why I can never see a future where Mastodon (or similar) is an improvement in any way at all, unlike the CEO of Vivaldi which said that Mastodon is the future and how things should be working.
Like I said last year after reading the following online:
“Free speech doesn’t really work if noone changes their views”
…meaning two or more people can no longer have a discussion, a heated debate, and at the end of the discussion respectfully say to each other that they agree to disagree, and that’s all there is to it! No, that is no longer possible in some people’s minds. Instead today one side need to “win” and convert the opponent in order for freedom of speech to “really work”.
@Karl Patting on each others back… That is what is called an echo chamber – and i personally do not want to hear only one kind of allowed opinion, i want to hear all opinon, because only if you are able to take all into account you can create an unbiased opinon.
And THAT is what the left fears, that people could also be persuaded to switch to “the dark side” – that way they try to destroy all their opponents, because they fear a true honest and open discourse.
And that is what makes them in the end so pathetic – but as said, there have been times where Liberals/Progressives have been different… but that times are sadly gone.
@Sajadi
Interesting comments section to this article about Metas Threads launch:
“https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/6/23786108/threads-internal-activity-data-exclusive-instagram-meta”
Zuckerberg Vs. Musk. – Good Vs. Evil.
“The lack of toxicity is an absolute breath of fresh air. I’m glad this is being run by a company that’s accountable to shareholders and has a financial incentive not to allow hate speech or graphic violence. I just don’t want those things on my social media, or in general.”
“it’s also not openly neo-nazi anti-trans “i recommend you everyone to vote trump in this election from a standpoint of pure economic theory” plutocrat garbage. zuck is a strangely pale and unfeeling lifeform and we have reached a point where that is massively preferable to the alternative”
—–
“The liberals win again.”
And someone took the bate ;)…..
“Just because someone isn’t a neo-Nazi and isn’t into watching kittens in a blender doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a liberal.
Some of us just want sane content moderation based on reasonable standards.”
Oh dear. Very “reasonable” comment that lol.
@Karl
Here is a nice quote, which sums it fully up!
Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.”
? Henry Louis Gates Jr
Even more depressing is that in the past it has been the left who has been all about freedom and choice – Who could forget the real WW2 anti-fascists who freed Nazi Germany.
From such a heroic mentality the left today is very far away, they have become the speech police who destroy with authoritarian fist everyone who disagrees with them. If someone is intentionally limiting someone’s freedom to voice their opinion, it is authoritarian. That is all what is worth and necessary to say.
Instead the left is populated more and more by self-hating zealots which attack anyone who is supporting in any way the west or the western system. Self-hate is no good advice giver.
For some reason, people assume Mastodon users want everyone from Twitter to come over to Mastodon – we do not.
Fascists and right-wing bigots are not welcome and they never will be. They should stick to Twitter or Facebook or Parler or Gab or Truth Social or 8Chan or Telegram or Kiwi Farms, of one of the hundreds of other shitholes where they can spew their hate and bullshit. In short, those type of people can f*ck off.
@ECJ The only fascists and bigots here are the radical left
@ECJ Thanks for proving my point in calling everyone not on the left bigots.
Shows my comment was exactly right that a lot of you are anti-free speech and anti-democracy extremists. Conservatives, Libertarians or Centrists are valid alignments and in no way extremist related. Better to start to clean up at your own door first.
You neglected to mention Socialists. What’s with that?
@Peter Socialists/Liberals/Progressives… 3 times the same, does not matter which term you use in the end.