Social media upstart Mastodon is transitioning into a non-profit organization

X and Bluesky rival Mastodon has announced plans to transition into a non-profit organization. The decentralized social network is looking to further differentiate it from the competition, and the latest move “affirm[s] the intent that Mastodon should not be owned or controlled by a single individual”.

Precise details of how the change will work are yet to be finalized, but there will be a new, dedicated European not-for-profit entity.

See also:

• Apple defends Siri, saying the data it collects is never used for advertising, never sold, and never used for profiling
• Microsoft will forcibly install the new Outlook app on Windows 10 in February
• New year, new low? Microsoft’s latest underhand tactic is spoofing Google for Bing users

In a blog post explaining the changes, the Mastodon Team talks about the roots of the platform. “When founder Eugen Rochko started working on Mastodon, his focus was on creating the code and conditions for the kind of social media he envisioned”.

The blog post continues:

The legal setup was a means to an end, a quick fix to allow him to continue operations. From the start, he declared that Mastodon would not be for sale and would be free of the control of a single wealthy individual, and he could ensure that because he was the person in control, the only ultimate decision-maker.

This approach was efficient and expedient at first, but in time it was clear that the Mastodon structures needed to evolve as the community grew. Taking the first tentative steps almost a year ago, there are already multiple organizations involved with shepherding the Mastodon code and platform. The next 6 months will see the transformation of the Mastodon structures, shifting away from the early days’ single-person ownership and enshrining the envisioned independence in a dedicated European not-for-profit entity.

In the short terms there will be few changes, and a phased approach means that this will be a very gradual process. Mastodon will continue to host two servers, mastodon.social and mastodon.online, and the team adds:

There will be no change in users experience at this stage, above and beyond the usual code development and releases. However, changes are definitely in the pipeline.

More information about the changes can be found here.