Booming following the massive influx of users fleeing Twitter following its takeover by Elon Musk, the Mastodon social network is evolving with version 4.0 which brings new functions and numerous fixes.
Elon Musk continues to do anything on Twitter, and it’s not to displease everyone! This is the case of Mastodon, a social network that works on the same principle – everyone can post messages, called toots or toots, containing videos, images, GIFs or Internet links, and to exchange with others – with the difference that it is based on decentralized servers – there is not a single owner of the platform, who can do as they please, because everyone can manage their own server (read our article to learn more). A credo that has visibly seduced, since Mastodon has seen its number of users jump since the takeover of Twitter, especially since Elon Musk’s policy on freedom of expression worries many Internet users. On Mastodon, on the contrary, everyone is absolutely free to express themselves as they wish and to apply their own moderation rules on their server. On the other hand, the social network indicates that “we can’t control the servers, but we can control what we promote on this page. Our organization will only direct you to servers that are consistently committed to moderation against racism, sexism and transphobia.” This is a pleasant change. But these are not its only assets.
Mastodon is full of fixes and improvements
Since October 27, 2022, when the billionaire became the proud owner of Twitter, more than a million people have joined the ranks of Mastodon or reactivated their account, bringing the total number of users to over of 1.6 million. So certainly, we are a long way from hundreds of millions of accounts on the blue bird, but the progress is dazzling. Faced with the influx of newcomers, Eugen Rochko, the creator, had to take measures to guarantee the stability and proper functioning of the platform, which has experienced several bugs and malfunctions in recent weeks. So he invested in new servers, hired new staff and just released Mastodon version 4.0, which succeeds version 3.5.3. It fixes many problems but also adds functions that should please. Some of these were financed by the NGI0 Discovery Fund, a fund established by NLnet – which has notably played a role in the diffusion of the Internet in Europe – and the support of the Next Generation Internet program of the European Commission.
Version 4.0 rectifies the many bugs and slowdowns that have occurred in recent weeks by providing security patches. It also brings its share of new features such as the ability to follow hashtags, translate posts and choose a language for displaying trends. The filter system is also fleshed out, and toots can now include new file types of new types – WebP, Wave, AVIF and HEIC. Posts can now be edited from the web interface, and not just from the mobile app, which is more convenient. Moreover, the interface is entitled to new icons and other minor visual changes. Administrators gain in flexibility since they can define customizable roles for users of their servers, and not only those of user, moderator and admin. To note that it is the administrators of each server who are responsible for performing the update. Its deployment may therefore take a little time.