Straddling Two Platforms: From Twitter to Mastodon, an Analysis of the Evolution of an Unfinished Social Media Migration

Social media have been fundamental in the daily lives of millions of people, but they have raised concerns about content moderation policies, the management of personal data, and their commercial exploitation. The acquisition of Twitter (now X) by Elon Musk in 2022 generated concerns among Twitter u...

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Authors: Peña Fernández, Simón, Larrondo Ureta, Ainara, Morales Gras, Jordi
Format: article
Publication Date:2025
Country:España
Institution:Universidad del País Vasco
Repository:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
OAI Identifier:oai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/73859
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10810/73859
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Mastodon
Twitter
migration
social media
social networks
user behaviour
platform
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spelling Straddling Two Platforms: From Twitter to Mastodon, an Analysis of the Evolution of an Unfinished Social Media MigrationPeña Fernández, SimónLarrondo Ureta, AinaraMorales Gras, JordiMastodonTwittermigrationsocial mediasocial networksuser behaviourplatformSocial media have been fundamental in the daily lives of millions of people, but they have raised concerns about content moderation policies, the management of personal data, and their commercial exploitation. The acquisition of Twitter (now X) by Elon Musk in 2022 generated concerns among Twitter users regarding changes in the platform’s direction, prompting a migration campaign by some user groups to the federated network Mastodon. This study reviews the onboarding of users to this decentralised platform between 2016 and 2022 and analyses the migration of 19,000 users who identified themselves as supporters of the platform switch. The results show that the migration campaign was a reactive response to Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and was led by a group of highly active academics, scientists, and journalists. However, a complete transition was not realised, as users preferred to straddle their presence on both platforms. Mastodon’s decentralisation made it difficult to exactly replicate Twitter’s communities, resulting in a partial loss of these users’ social capital and greater fragmentation of these user communities, which highlights the intrinsic differences between both platformsThis work is part of the research project TED2021-130810B-C22, funded by the State Research Agency (AEI) of the Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICIN) of Spain 10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Commission Next Generation EU/PRTR. It is also part of the scientific output of the Consolidated Research Group of the Basque University System, Gureiker (IT1496-22).202520252025info:eu-repo/semantics/articleapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/10810/73859reponame:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigacióninstname:Universidad del País VascoInglésinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/MICINN/TED2021-130810B-C22/https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/14/7/402info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/© 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licenseoai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/738592026-06-18T09:23:17Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Straddling Two Platforms: From Twitter to Mastodon, an Analysis of the Evolution of an Unfinished Social Media Migration
title Straddling Two Platforms: From Twitter to Mastodon, an Analysis of the Evolution of an Unfinished Social Media Migration
spellingShingle Straddling Two Platforms: From Twitter to Mastodon, an Analysis of the Evolution of an Unfinished Social Media Migration
Peña Fernández, Simón
Mastodon
Twitter
migration
social media
social networks
user behaviour
platform
title_short Straddling Two Platforms: From Twitter to Mastodon, an Analysis of the Evolution of an Unfinished Social Media Migration
title_full Straddling Two Platforms: From Twitter to Mastodon, an Analysis of the Evolution of an Unfinished Social Media Migration
title_fullStr Straddling Two Platforms: From Twitter to Mastodon, an Analysis of the Evolution of an Unfinished Social Media Migration
title_full_unstemmed Straddling Two Platforms: From Twitter to Mastodon, an Analysis of the Evolution of an Unfinished Social Media Migration
title_sort Straddling Two Platforms: From Twitter to Mastodon, an Analysis of the Evolution of an Unfinished Social Media Migration
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Peña Fernández, Simón
Larrondo Ureta, Ainara
Morales Gras, Jordi
author Peña Fernández, Simón
author_facet Peña Fernández, Simón
Larrondo Ureta, Ainara
Morales Gras, Jordi
author_role author
author2 Larrondo Ureta, Ainara
Morales Gras, Jordi
author2_role author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Mastodon
Twitter
migration
social media
social networks
user behaviour
platform
topic Mastodon
Twitter
migration
social media
social networks
user behaviour
platform
description Social media have been fundamental in the daily lives of millions of people, but they have raised concerns about content moderation policies, the management of personal data, and their commercial exploitation. The acquisition of Twitter (now X) by Elon Musk in 2022 generated concerns among Twitter users regarding changes in the platform’s direction, prompting a migration campaign by some user groups to the federated network Mastodon. This study reviews the onboarding of users to this decentralised platform between 2016 and 2022 and analyses the migration of 19,000 users who identified themselves as supporters of the platform switch. The results show that the migration campaign was a reactive response to Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and was led by a group of highly active academics, scientists, and journalists. However, a complete transition was not realised, as users preferred to straddle their presence on both platforms. Mastodon’s decentralisation made it difficult to exactly replicate Twitter’s communities, resulting in a partial loss of these users’ social capital and greater fragmentation of these user communities, which highlights the intrinsic differences between both platforms
publishDate 2025
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2025
2025
2025
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
format article
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/10810/73859
url http://hdl.handle.net/10810/73859
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/MICINN/TED2021-130810B-C22/
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/14/7/402
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
instname:Universidad del País Vasco
instname_str Universidad del País Vasco
reponame_str Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
collection Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
repository.name.fl_str_mv
repository.mail.fl_str_mv
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score 15,812429

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