Mastodon vs Twitter: Which One Better?

Moreover, because Mastodon gGmbH is a nonprofit, its funds are based on sponsorship or support on Patreon, while individual servers may follow the same model or even be free for members and financially sustained by its admins.

Importantly, Mastodon does not sell data or run ads, nor does it have an algorithmically curated timeline. 

Instead, it features a “home” timeline with the people you follow, a “local” timeline with posts from users on the same instance and, finally, a “federated” timeline that shows all posts from all users.

2. Content moderation

In Mastodon, each instance (or community) governs its own rules, including content moderation. Thus, different communities may have different policies concerning the type of content that is acceptable and considered safe according to what members are comfortable reading or sharing with others.

While you can choose to share posts only within a community, they can also be public, and all members of all Mastodon instances can communicate with each other. 

This means that what is considered acceptable on one instance may be considered sensitive on another. In that case, the people responsible for an instance might block other instances to avoid its members seeing unwanted content.

X’s approach to content moderation is different and indeed, more conventional: The rules are established by a legal team and apply to everyone on the platform. 

While this might seem like an easier and mostly straightforward process, it might also be one of the reasons many users have started considering using Mastodon.

Despite the rules being publicly available and clearly stating the prohibition of engaging in harassment, or inciting others to create or promote hateful content, policy makers and regulators have openly alerted the platform to review its moderation practices amid recent changes and layoffs.

3. Data protection