The gold rush to become the new Twitter

TWITTER’S demise is imminent. At least that’s the declaration from those who’ve announced their move to another platform. That they’ve made these pronouncements on Twitter itself, and then stuck around to watch, highlights how difficult it is for users to cut their addiction since Elon Musk took a machete to the network.

Amid the dysfunction comes an increasing number of alternatives vying to lure Twitterati. Some were created out of the ashes of Twitter, while many are getting a fresh start after languishing in the shadows for years. Here’s a look at the alternatives for those seeking a Plan B, and how they stack up against the Blue Bird.

Mastodon: The German social media platform founded by Eugen Rochko six years ago is the early favourite for the title of “the next Twitter”, yet it has polarised opinion. For one thing, it’s not even a single site. Mastodon is actually open-source software that enables anyone to run their own social networking service. If you choose to do so, then you can link to other Mastodon-based sites to create what’s called a “fediverse”, so that a member of one site (also called an instance, or a server) can interact with those on other sites. The website www.movetdon.org allows people to automatically find those they follow on Twitter, easing the transition.