Mastodon

Mastodon's account was taken down just hours after it posted a link to a now-banned account tracking new Twitter owner Elon Musk's private jet.

[tweeted](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456?s=20&t=F4qTVW8UyEWbxOQTQDzDMQ) last month he would let it remain online: "My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk." Musk promised he would allow all speech permissible by law on Twitter prior to completing his $44 billion deal to buy the company. [Mastodon Isn’t A Replacement For Twitter—But It Has Rewards Of Its Own](https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2022/11/04/mastodon-isnt-a-replacement-for-twitterbut-it-has-rewards-of-its-own/?sh=5199856a6eb6) (Forbes) [Twitter Suspends Account Tracking Elon Musk's Private Jet](https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/12/14/twitter-suspends-account-tracking-elon-musks-private-jet/?sh=136bb8931f99) (Forbes) The account has appeared to bother Musk for at least a year: Late last year, Musk offered the account’s operator $5,000 to stop tracking his jet, according to [CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/14/tech/elonjet-twitter-suspended/index.html). This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info." [earlier](https://twitter.com/donie/status/1603542490900226049?s=20&t=_OLoEDnLTS-6tJomOJs3Rg) in the day tweeted a link to an account on its own platform tracking the location of Musk's jet, just a day after a similar account [was banned from Twitter](https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/12/14/twitter-suspends-account-tracking-elon-musks-private-jet/?sh=136bb8931f99).

Insider's attempt to publish tweets containing Mastodon links were met with an error message identifying the tweet's content as "potentially harmful."

[suspended the official Mastodon Twitter account](https://twitter.com/joinmastodon). Each attempt was met with an error message that read: "Your Tweet couldn't be sent because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful. [December 16, 2022]

(Bloomberg) -- Twitter Inc. suspended the accounts of several journalists who have been covering billionaire Elon Musk, who acquired the social network in ...

CNN, whose reporter was swept up in the rash of suspensions, responded by saying “the impulsive and unjustified suspension of a number of reporters, including CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, is concerning but not surprising. “This is management as dark performance art,” said Paul Barrett, deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, in an email. Twitter earlier cut off the feed of competing social network Mastodon, which had posted a link on its Twitter page to an account on its own service that uses publicly available flight data to track Musk’s private jet. “You doxx, you get suspended, end of story, that’s it,” Musk said in a journalist-hosted Twitter Spaces session shortly after his first poll. Musk said the suspended profiles, which included sports and political commentator Keith Olbermann, were of people who had posted his real-time location, describing the information as “basically assassination coordinates.” The vote concluded he should remove the bans, and he issued a new poll with fewer options where voting again leans toward lifting the restrictions.

The social media giant has also suspended the Twitter account of its new rival.

And sanctions, soon," she tweeted. "Elon Musk should be aware of that. [sue the owner of a Twitter account that tracked his private jet.](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63978323) This account has also been suspended. And Twitter is also stopping users from adding links to their Mastodon account in their bios - calling them "malware". Twitter has blocked links to some of the largest servers which users would join, including the most popular "social" channel. Twitter has blocked its users from sharing some links to its social media rival Mastodon.

Twitter on Thursday suspended the accounts of journalists who cover the social media platform and its new owner Elon Musk, including reporters working for ...

"News about arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying," she tweeted. But Musk later suggested the penalty would last a week in response to a question about his suspension of former ESPN and MSNBC host Keith Olbermann. "Twitter's increasing instability and volatility should be of incredible concern for everyone who uses Twitter," CNN's statement added. The official account for Mastodon, a decentralized social network billed as an alternative to Twitter, was also banned. He later added: "Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not." The company hasn't explained to the journalists why it took down the accounts and made their profiles and past tweets disappear.

Mastodon, Twitters open-source rival, was removed from the service on Thursday afternoon. Mastodon tweeted a link to Musks private aircraft tracking account ...

[Jack Sweeney](/topic/jack-sweeney), a [Florida](/topic/florida)student’s account, along with several other jet-tracking bots, like the one that updated [Mark Zuckerberg](/news/mark-zuckerberg), [Meta](/topic/meta)CEO’s status. Mastodon’s servers, independent but open instances of the social network, are governed by individuals, who can impose regulations. [Elon Musk](/panache/panache-people-101/elon-musk/profileshow/79257472.cms)initially declared that Twitter would accept any non-illegal speech, but he has now blocked particular accounts for personal reasons.

Users trying to post links to Mastodon servers revived a notice saying the posts were “potentially harmful.”

During the call, Musk tried to Musk had [previously](https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-shadowban-elonjet-private-jet-twitter-1849882446) tried to pay Sweeney $5,000 to voluntarily remove the account. [suspended again](https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-twitter-elonjet-banned-private-plane-tracker-1849891785) for allegedly violating Twitter’s rules. Researchers, activists, journalists, and an assortment of other disaffected Twitter users fled to the platform after Musk, well, basically turned Twitter into the very “ [free-for-all hellscape](https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-twitter-stocks-advertisers-1849709610),” he said he wanted to avoid. [claims](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-07/mastodon-struggles-to-keep-up-with-surge-of-new-users-fleeing-twitter) it drew in nearly half a million users in the first two weeks after Musk took over the helm at Twitter. 2 Years + 2 Months Subscription](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/kinja-deals/lifehacker)

Joining a Mastodon server only requires a few personal details. Screenshot by Peter Butler/CNET. Most Mastodon servers with open registration will only ask for ...

[Fediverse](https://fediverse.party/). The site currently lists about 80 servers that have committed to the [Mastodon Server Covenant](https://joinmastodon.org/covenant), an agreement to enforce moderation, make backups of the site and give at least three months warning before ever shutting down an instance. (And say hello!) You can follow any account on Mastodon, whether or not it's on your own server instance, and the account's posts will be added to your Home feed in chronological order. Another large general server that I recently joined is [mas.to](https://mas.to/about). Each post is limited to 500 characters (instead of 280), and you can include links, images (JPG, GIF or PNG, up to 8MB), audio files (MP3, OGG, WAV, FLAC, OPUS, AAC, M4A and 3GP up to 40MB) and videos (MP4, M4V, MOV, WebM up to 40MB). If you don't find a server that you like on joinmastodon.org, you can try other Mastodon directories, such as [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) is a free social media service that functions much like Twitter. [Mastodon](/tech/services-and-software/ex-tweeters-are-moving-to-twitter-alternative-mastodon-how-to-sign-up/) has been a big beneficiary. Now, Twitter has [banned accounts that Musk promised to protect](/news/social-media/twitter-account-tracking-musks-jet-suspended-after-crazy-stalker-incident/) and [suspended several prominent journalists](/news/social-media/elon-musk-bans-journalists-on-twitter-who-reported-on-elon-musk/) who report on Elon Musk. He says the original button was called "publish," but a committed supporter promised lifetime support of the Mastodon Patreon account if he would change it to "toot." [Elon Musk took control of Twitter](/news/social-media/elon-musk-takes-over-twitter-fires-executives/) on Oct.

Elon Musk's Twitter sparked an international outcry on Thursday by suspending a number of journalists at major news organizations who cover him.

That definition could take a variety of forms, but it would need to pass muster with the judge before prosecutors would even have a shot at arguing that Twitter’s conduct was anticompetitive. “If Twitter has market power, it may have some duties to deal with competitors,” Slaiman said. Sharing Mastodon user handles as plain text, and using link-shortening services that obscured the destination URL, allowed users to get around the restrictions. CNN confirmed some of the reports with its own testing, finding that Twitter blocked attempts to tweet links referring users to a Mastodon profile. “Twitter is now attempting to prevent its users from navigating to the official social media accounts of elected officials on other platforms,” said Virginia Democratic Rep. As news of the journalist suspensions spread, many Twitter users announced they were migrating or expanding to Mastodon.

Social network Mastodon has exploded with new accounts since Twitter's controversial suspensions.

[server rules](https://journa.host/about/more) for each Mastodon instance to make sure it's a good fit, but don't worry too much about which server you join. All servers on the official Mastodon site have agreed to follow the best practices of the [Mastodon Server Covenant](https://joinmastodon.org/covenant). The site provides useful data about each Mastodon instance, including number of users, number of "statuses" (posts), server uptime percentage and which versions of the Mastodon software it is running. [joinmastodon.org](https://joinmastodon.org/servers) site. Be patient, and try a new server if you can't complete the registration for another. [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) is not a single website: It's a decentralized network made up of thousands of websites talking to each other. [@elonjet](https://twitter.com/elonjet), a bot account that tracked the private flights of Elon Musk. Musk had criticized Sweeney's account but also pledged not to ban it in a [now infamous tweet](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456) from Nov. Some, but not all, of the accounts had posted links to the Elonjet account on Mastodon. You can also get the step-by-step process for creating a Mastodon account and participating on the growing social network. It's also created a lot of new users at Mastodon, an open-source social network that was averaging about 20,000 new accounts daily but has garnered more than 70,000 new users in the past 24 hours, per a popular [Mastodon tracking bot](https://bitcoinhackers.org/@mastodonusercount). You don't even need an account to find and read posts from these reporters or anyone on Mastodon -- I'll show you how.

Along with blocking journalists covering a controversy over third parties tracking Musk's private jet, the platform also suspended the official Twitter ...

[Eugen Rochko](/topic/eugen-rochko), the CEO cum founder of Mastodon, has highlighted a public report about Twitter's link blocking without addressing it specifically. A Twitter handle of homegrown microblogging platform Koo — @kooeminence — was suspended by the US social network on Friday. However, the sudden limitations Twitter imposed on link-sharing prevented some attempts to point users toward the competing platform.