When I look at Mastodon posts, I see a decent amount of replies and boosts for popular posts, but not very many stars (see example image). I assumed a star is the same as a like, but I feel not a lot of people star a post, whereas I did see a lot of hearts/likes on Twitter posts. Are they not equivalent?
I know this is an old thread but I don't see what I consider to be the most correct answer. While it's true that favorites are not used in the process of surfacing new content, the nature of the content algorithm (or lack there of) means that you may not want to boost posts that you don't necessarily feel your followers need to see. For example, suppose I enjoy a shitpost but have a relatively professional audience, here is where the favorite comes in. This way you can encourage the OP to continue posting content of that sort without necessarily platforming it on your profile.