OTTAWA, Nov. 28, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, CIRA is proud to announce its official partnership with Mastodon Canada, mstdn.ca, to support its growth and community-building efforts. As thousands of Canadians flock to the platform, this unique partnership reflects CIRA’s mission to support Canadian internet communities built on the open web and powered by a .CA domain.
Best known for managing the .CA internet domain on behalf of all Canadians, part of CIRA’s mandate includes supporting Canadian-led digital initiatives. Mastodon’s decentralized, open-source network and emergence of a Canadian server was an ideal fit for CIRA’s community-minded mission, leading to a natural partnership. Additionally, Mastodon comes with effective anti-abuse tools to help enable trust and protection on the platform. Given Mastodon's decentralized and independent nature, users follow the server’s codes of conduct which include strict anti-hate and harassment policies.
In recent weeks, Mastodon has seen widespread growth, with the Canadian instance seeing major growth from 1,000 subscribers to nearly 20,000 in as little as two weeks. CIRA’s support will help enable growth and cover instance costs as well as fund Mastodon Canada’s community-building efforts.
Executive Quote
The challenges being experienced by social media platforms around the world are a wakeup call that we should be rethinking the role of these for-profit global communications networks.
At CIRA, we see an opportunity to help empower Canadians to build new platforms and communities based on the principles of the open internet. We are proud to support Mastodon Canada in its mission to build a truly Canadian, community-driven network based on respect and inclusiveness.
-- Spencer Callaghan, Director, Brand & Communications, CIRA
This innovative partnership with CIRA bolsters Mastodon Canada's increasingly demanding server costs and will help us develop critical pieces of governance to secure our community into the future.
-- Chad Ohman, founder, Mastodon Canada
Key Facts
- To date, Mastodon has hit over 2.5 million active monthly users, spread out across nearly 8,000 instances
- On November 18, 2022, Mastodon hit a record of nearly 180,000 signups of new users in a single day
- CIRA helps strengthen Canada’s internet ecosystem through its Community Investment Program, which includes funding for community-led internet projects, free tools to protect Canadians online and projects that promote fast, resilient internet access.
Additional resources
- Discover Mastodon Canada
- Follow CIRA on Mastodon
- Download the Mastodon app on iOS and Android
- Read the Mastodon Canada blog
About CIRA
CIRA manages the .CA top-level domain on behalf of all Canadians. CIRA also develops technologies and services—such as CIRA DNS Firewall and CIRA Canadian Shield—that help support its goal of building a trusted internet for Canadians. The CIRA team operates one of the fastest-growing country code top-level domains (ccTLD), a high-performance global DNS network, and one of the world's most advanced back-end registry solutions.
About Mastodon Canada
As part of Mastodon’s Fediverse, mstdn.ca is a decentralized social media powered by Mastodon that is run by Canadians, for Canadians, hosted in Canada.
Media Contacts
Shehnila Sayeed
Communications Specialist
CIRA
- 613.805.3146
- shehnila.sayeed@cira.ca
