(Madrid) The setbacks faced by the Californian platform Twitter since its takeover by Elon Musk are an opportunity to “explore” alternatives, such as the social network “Mastodon”, estimated Friday the European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager .
“What I find interesting about the events” affecting Twitter is that they have “made a lot of people interested” in how other platforms can be “used”, underlined Mr.me Vestager during a press point in Madrid with the Spanish Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño.
“I therefore hope, regardless of the future of Twitter, and I wish them all the success”, that this situation is “an opportunity for people to explore, to be more curious” vis-à-vis the existing alternatives, continued the commissioner, citing the case of “Mastodon”.
These remarks come as the Californian giant has experienced a cascade of departures since Elon Musk, owner of Twitter for three weeks, asked employees still present in the group on Thursday to choose between giving themselves “fully, unconditionally” and leaving.
This new wave of departures, added to the flight of advertisers and the confused launch of new products such as paid certification, cast doubt on the future of the platform – Elon Musk having himself warned Twitter teams that the company risked bankruptcy.
Despite this situation, Margrethe Vestager assured that the European Commission would “continue to use Twitter as a communication tool”, without ruling out the use of other platforms in the long term.
An approach also defended by Nadia Calviño. “We will continue to use Twitter, but if we finally see that it does not offer the necessary guarantees in terms of security, other platforms” will “surely” do so, she stressed.
Since Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, many users, unhappy or worried about the measures announced, have decided to migrate to other platforms, such as Mastodon.
Unknown to the general public a few days ago, this network created in 2016 by the German developer Eugen Rochko presents itself as “a free and open source decentralized social network”, without any advertising. He has known for several days a peak of popularity.