Where to go if you want to get off Twitter (although it’s not as easy as it sounds) | technology

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Elon Musk officially bought Twitter just 15 days ago. Since then, his opinions, decisions, and deviations have generated three kinds of opinions: I want to continue on Twitter anyway, I want to keep seeing what happens and I want to get out of here. According to Musk’s own numbers, the first two groups make up the overwhelming majority; Twitter has grown over these two weeks and now has over 250 million daily users.

If the subscription is confirmed or the non-paid subscription blocking system, the first and second Twitter users (those who pay versus those who do not) may appear. This can lead to increased interest in other networks.

Not only that: A staff meeting on Thursday said it “doesn’t rule out bankruptcy” but that “more money is coming in than going out.” On Thursday, executives who hold critical positions in the security field also resigned. The uncontrolled posting of new jobs makes them fear legal consequences from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC): “Elon sends rockets into space, he has no way from the FTC,” was a Musk circulated in the company’s internal channel. Ending the tragic chaos is not a secondary option.

Because another issue that creates a huge mess on the social network is Musk’s decision to sell Check blue identifying verified accounts causing many users to buy and tweet the names of companies, politicians, and personalities on their behalf: in a few hours, fake The accounts of Lockheed Martin, Roblox, BP, Lilly, and even Tesla itself, are also owned by Musk.

On Twitter now the only certainty is impermanence. Musk announced that users can expect a lot of “bullshit” and “news” in the coming months, coming and going.

Before looking at other options, a word of caution: For regular Twitter users, leaving is a rocky road. Because of the network effect, getting followers and a good choice of who you follow takes years of tweeting and red tape. For these users, Twitter is a primary source of information, entertainment, or discussion. Giving up on them from day to day is not easy.

New or young users of text-centric networks may appreciate other options better. But one thing should be clear: No other Twitter site like Twitter comes in handy.

The tendency to diversify the use of applications can contribute to the existence of other applications similar to Twitter and that we are now doing with many applications which is what we used to do with only one application, but there is no single alternative. These ups and downs also give new insight into the fragility of a social network system that just two years ago was seen as unbreakable.

1. The Magnificent Grid: Mastodon

Mastodon is the eternal great candidate to replace Twitter. Its process is the same: you write a message with a maximum of 500 characters, it’s public, you can retweet it, like it and the last message appears first in the chronology. These days it has grown a lot and now has more than 1 million accounts.

Size is one big difference. Mastodon has only one full-time employee, its founder Eugen Rushko, who lives in Germany. Twitter had more than 7,000 workers before the mass shooting of Musk. Rochko has 190,000 followers on Mastodon. Musk has 113 million on Twitter. Measurement matters.

It’s a great network because it’s a picture of what social networks would be if we were all nice talkers in a public arena. It’s also partly an option for the future of social networking: without algorithms, without ads, with servers controlled by their communities, so that if one type of speech is blocked, there is always another. And she has no extreme right because Rochko does not allow it. This conversation went viral a few days ago: a user wants to convince him that the Nazis no longer exist. “This nonsense doesn’t suit me,” Rochko says. (Although a network with far-right elements like Gab uses the Mastodon protocol, which is free. What happens next is that the rest of the servers you want to disconnect are isolated.)

The common metaphor for Mastodon is that it’s the vegetarian web against carnivorous Twitter: more mindful, healthier, and less aggressive with the planet. Tweets have an unattractive name trumpet.

Creating an account is a bit complicated because you have to choose a server/community and it looks complicated (almost everything is in English), but the process is normal. The server is not forever, it can be changed later. Once on it, it looks like Twitter in 2007. There are a few people, there are bugs and there is hope for it to grow.

Could it be an alternative to Twitter? Rather, it is complementary. Currently, people with Mastodon accounts on Twitter are still advertising their Mastodon account. There are services that allow you to see who of your followers is on Mastodon, such as Twitodon and Debirdify. There are also tools to tweet (or tweet?) on both networks.

Leaving Twitter today loses impact and objectivity. The cybersecurity community has already built enough network to share information and make an impact. Then they take to Twitter to talk about it. But the expectation of alternate watering events seen on Twitter is reasonable.

Other Twitter-like apps like Parler or Truth Social don’t have any influence outside the US at the moment.

2. Well-established and premium alternatives: Reddit, Tumblr, Discord

Mastodon is a combination of Twitter, Reddit, and Discord. Reddit appeared around the same time as Twitter. It’s a network of millions of communities with their own moderators categorized by interests: tech, solo travel, LA Lakers, Tinder, memes, sushi, you name it. Each community has its own dialect and rules. Viral posts are posted on the front page of everyone, but each user only follows what interests him. the problem? Non-English speaking communities are small and users are anonymous. It’s not a place where celebrities or companies go to share information. Nor is it a news network: it’s more about the debate than the last minute. But it is useful to be informed in a general way.

Discord is huge but generic WhatsApp groups and organized by topic. It started as a place to discuss video games. Now it has expanded to include all kinds of topics. It’s more public than WhatsApp and more private than Reddit. Like on Reddit, most users are anonymous.

Tumblr is a network between Instagram and Twitter, with lots of pictures but also a high quality fun discussion. It hardly contains any info and of those three it’s the least tweeted, but they’re pretty happy there’s no Musk or anything like that.

Telegram, more private, or LinkedIn, more professional, have uses that overlap a bit with Twitter, but less so than those other three.

3. The Great Classic: Email

The Newsletters Like this is another alternative to the time you spend on Twitter. Rumor has it that Musk will shut down the newsletter company that Twitter bought, Revue, and allow longer posts in return. The more solid alternative Newsletters It is Substack.

But this is for the creators. As consumers, the brand doesn’t matter much. The Newsletters Today they are an entertaining source of information that is not a newspaper article or tweet. Remember the old blogs that died in part thanks to Twitter. His rebirth is now intriguing.

4. The network that does not exist yet: BlueSky

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey is behind a project for a future social network. It’s called BlueSky but it’s still in development and by invitation only at the moment. Like Mastodon, it is a decentralized protocol. It is a “unified” network or guerrilla.

Like email, whoever wants can create a server and not rely on a single authority. Gmail is one of the biggest, but your emails go to Hotmail or Protonmail without any problem. Such a network will work the same way, without algorithms, and without ads. Instead of a company like Twitter at the center, each community will have its own server. Another similar remaining option is Cohost.

Given the problems of Twitter and Meta, the future of more networks and fewer commons is not far off today.

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