SURF quits X and embraces Mastodon

Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter and renamed it X, public '"twexits" – as farewells to the platform have been called – have become commonplace. Critics say Musk is doing too little to counter disinformation by trolls and fake accounts.

SURF, the Dutch IT cooperation for education and research, has had enough as well. The organisation writes in a press release that X no longer withholds values such as “humanity, autonomy and justice.” Many scientists have already left the platform or are using it less, SURF argues. A spokesperson for the organisation refers to a recent study by Nature, in which more than half of the scientists surveyed said they are tweeting less or have closed their accounts.

Alternatives
There are many alternatives to X, including BlueSky (from former Twitter boss Jack Dorsey), Threads (Meta/Facebook), LinkedIn (Microsoft) and even the short-video platform TikTok (from China’s ByteDance).

SURF is switching to the much smaller Mastodon, which is open-source and decentralised. On this platform, local administrators largely determine the rules and technological parameters of their own communities.

Last year, SURF set up a Dutch education and research community on Mastodon as an experiment. Thirty-six educational institutions now participate in it, mainly from the higher education sector.

Not completely anonymous
Mastodon users cannot be completely anonymous in this new community, which SURF sees as an advantage. “This way, we minimise the chance of bots, troll armies, spam and disinformation appearing on our server. Users do retain the freedom to be active under a pseudonym, by choosing their own username.”

Nevertheless, plenty of institutions continue to use X. The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) still has an account, for instance, as does the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Robbert Dijkgraaf. On the other hand, Digitalisation Minister Alexandra van Huffelen has quit the platform. She can now be followed on Mastodon and LinkedIn.

In December, the European Commission launched an investigation into X. The platform is accused of lacking transparency and not doing enough to combat manipulation and disinformation.