Mozilla is leaving the fediverse federated space. The Mozilla.social server, which connects users to the Mastodon social network, will close on December 17, 2024. Until then, users can transfer their accounts to another server. This was reported by TechCrunch.
Unlike centralized platforms, users don't have to delete their account and lose their content and followers if they don't like the way the server works or the rules it has. Instead, they can move to another Mastodon server at any time or even launch their own. The same applies if the owner of the server decides to shut it down, as Mozilla is currently doing.
Mozilla.social was a small server with only 270 active users at the time of the closure announcement. By comparison, the most popular server, Mastodon.social, has more than 247,500 monthly active users.
Mozilla's refusal to develop in the direction of federated social networks is associated with the resignation of the company's CEO Mitchell Baker. Shortly after the change of leadership in the face of the new acting CEO Laura Chambers, the company announced that it would refocus its product strategy.
Now the company is focusing on the Firefox browser and artificial intelligence and will significantly reduce or even stop other areas. Among the products affected by the cutbacks were VPN, Relay, and Online Footprint Scrubber, as well as its own Mastodon server.