Decentralized social network Mastodon is finally available on Android.
The Android app arrives as Mastodon is trying to pull users away from rival Twitter, which is facing a hostile takeover bid from Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
For years, Mastodon, a nonprofit project, lived solely on the web. Last year, it launched an iOS app, and now its reach extends to Google's mobile OS, too. The app is available to download from the Google Play Store, and is also designed to make it easy for new users to better understand how Mastodon works.
Although Mastodon functions a lot like Twitter, it operates as a decentralized social network made up of individual servers with their own rules on content moderation. Users can pick and choose which server they’d like to join. But for now, the app doesn’t seem to support local or federated timelines, which are available on the web version.
The other drawback facing Mastodon is the relatively small user base. Founder Eugen Rochko estimates there are about 3.5 million users across Mastodon’s network, with over 250,000 monthly active users. Twitter, on the other hand, has 217 million daily active users.
Nevertheless, Mastodon says it’s seen an increase in new users after Musk announced his intention to buy Twitter. If he's successful, Musk plans on pushing Twitter to focus on free speech and transparency.
“I do think that we want to be, just very reluctant to delete things. Just very cautious with permanent bans. You know, time-outs would be better than some permanent bans,” Musk said in a TED talk last week.