Ruud Schilders, administrator of mastodons.world, which had about 100 people on the server before Twitter acquired it in 2022. Newly registered active users peaked at around 120,000 in November, Schilders said. But with all that new traffic, comes additional hate speech and obscene content. “I learned things I didn’t want to know,” Schilders said. By early February, the number of active users had dropped to about 49,000 active users—still more than the server’s previous count.
Schilders employed content moderators and funded by donations in the bank to cover monthly server costs. But he said that running the server now comes with increased pressure. “You suddenly become a public figure,” he said. He plans to separate his personal account from mastodon.world so he can post more freely without being connected to his admin work.
Part of Mastodon’s appeal is that users have more rights to block the content they see than on regular social networks. Server administrators create rules for their own versions, and they can trigger users to post hate speech, porn and spam or troll other users. People can block the entire server. But Mastodon’s decentralized nature makes each case have its own network, placing the liability on those who run it.
Administrators must comply with the law governing internet service providers wherever their servers may be accessed. In the US, they include Digital Millennium Copyright Actplace responsibility on platforms to self-register and remove copyrighted material, and Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rules, including the processing of children’s data. In Europe, there are GDPR Privacy Law and the new one Digital Services Act.
The legal burden on Mastodon server administrators could soon increase. The U.S. Supreme Court will review cases that focus on Article 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This provision has allowed tech companies to thrive by disclaiming responsibility for much of what users post on their platforms. If the court rules in a way that changes, weakens, or eliminates the part of the law, technology platforms and smaller entities like the Mastodon administrator could struggle.
Corey Silverstein, an attorney specializing in internet law, said: “Someone running an instance of Mastodon could be held liable for significantly more liability than they did. “That’s a big deal.”
Mastodon is just one of a number of platforms garnering renewed attention as some Twitter users look for alternatives. There are also Post.news, social hiveAnd To spill. Casey Fiesler, an associate professor of information science at the University of Colorado Boulder, said many new social platforms experience transient popularity, driven by a catalyst like a Twitter story. Some disappeared, but others gradually grew into larger networks.
“It’s hard for them to get started because what makes social media work is where your friends are,” says Fiesler. “This is one of the reasons why platform migrations tend to be gradual. The more people you know join a platform, the more likely you are to join.”
