This story was originally published on Passionfruit.
Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover in November 2022 brought along with it a lot of chaos. In a matter of days, many users, reporters, and former Twitter staff said Twitter was dying. Well-known creators like Hank Green and John Green announced their departures from the platform. Many creators began focusing their attention on other platforms or trying completely new ones that went viral amid the chaos—like Mastodon and Hive Social, the latter of which made headlines on Dec. 13, 2022, after disappearing from the app store only days after a controversy over potential security issues emerged.
While Twitter lives on—for now—what happened to contender platforms Hive Social and Mastodon that sprung up amid Twitter’s controversy, and what do creators need to know about these alternative social networks?
After Musk acquired and took over as chief executive of Twitter, many speculated that because of layoffs and resignations from fundamental teams on Twitter, the site would begin to break down and cease functioning. Others argued that due to mass controversies, like reinstating the accounts of banned figures like Ye, Donald Trump, and Andrew Tate, the platform would lose users and ad revenue. Many brands paused their Twitter ad campaigns during this time.
