Image: The Verge
Decentralized social network Mastodon has announced plans to transfer its ownership to a new non-profit entity. Ownership of Mastodon will move away from the control of CEO Eugen Rochko, in contrast to the power exerted by other social media CEOs like Meta co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and X owner Elon Musk.
“Simply, we are going to transfer ownership of key Mastodon ecosystem and platform components to a new non-profit organization,” Mastodon says in a blog post, “affirming the intent that Mastodon should not be owned or controlled by a single individual.”
Rochko, who founded Mastodon in 2016, will take on a new role with a focus on product strategy while ownership moves to a new not-for-profit entity based somewhere in Europe, with the exact location still to be finalized. The organization is currently headquartered in Germany, where it was a non-profit until its charitable status was stripped last year. This move is a way of restoring Rochko’s original intent for Mastodon.
“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,” Mastodon says. “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.”
In the short-term, nothing should change for users. Mastodon will continue to host the mastodon.social and mastodon.online servers and support its federated network. Routine code development and bug fixes are ongoing, though the announcement adds that, “changes are definitely in the pipeline.”
“Our core mission remains the same: to create the tools and digital spaces where people can build authentic, constructive online communities free from ads, data exploitation, manipulative algorithms or corporate monopolies,” Mastodon says.
Mastodon’s announcement comes at a time when the WordPress open-source project and its cofounder have been embroiled in a months-long legal feud, and Meta’s Zuckerberg has made headlines for stripping back Facebook and Instagram’s fact-checking and content moderation before lying about it to Joe Rogan.