The study talks to 16 Mastodon admins who got to say what they thought Mastodon did. It’s not really a study, it’s just a survey. Being posted here is just confirmation bias. For Mastodon to increase citizen empowerment, there has to be something measured and a control group that isn’t on Mastodon.

From the abstract

In this paper, following a pre-study survey, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 Mastodon instance administrators, including those who host instances to support marginalised and stigmatised communities

You really have to read beyond the headline. This isn’t Reddit.