Alternatives to Twitter see an influx of users

worst! But also the best,” Elon Musk tweeted recently. Not everyone agrees with the second sentiment. Soon after he purchased the social network for $44bn on October 27th, the hashtag #TwitterMigration started trending. Concerned with what Mr Musk has planned for the social-media platform, some are searching for alternative spaces to swap news, views and pictures of pets. Along with renewed interest in established platforms such as Tumblr, Discord and Reddit, newcomers are under consideration. What chance do they have of pecking away at Twitter’s 240m users?Many are flocking to Mastodon, a decentralised social network founded in 2016 by Eugen Rochko, a German developer and its only employee. The platform feels like Twitter, but positions itself as its antithesis: no ads and no algorithms and “not for sale”, it claims. On November 12th Mastodon said it had added over 1m new members since the Twitter deal closed. But meeting this sudden surge in interest has strained its small, crowdfunded model. Mastodon apparently receives only around $20,000 a month from just over 4,000 donors and some small government grants. It suspended sign-ups to the two servers it maintains after demand rocketed.