Social media is becoming something of a controversial thing of late. From Cambridge Analytica manipulating algorithms, to the self-destruction of Twitter, and the removal of anything DEI after Trump’s inauguration. Lately I’ve been trying to move on to new things, but where can we go from here?
Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter, it’s been managed into decline. Unbanning racists and neo-Nazis, charging people for a blue tick, restricting access to logged in users, and forcing the algorithm to make himself appear more popular have all contributed to a decline in Twitter’s user base, and advertisers leaving the platform.
The nail in the coffin was Musk’s Nazi Salute1 during the Trump inauguration. I had already deleted my account by this point, but this prompted many users and large accounts to switch over to Bluesky instead. It’s basically a Twitter clone and, as it is still fairly new, and makes it much easier to see content you are actually interested in.
Another app that has been picking up steam is Mastadon, another Twitter clone. Mastadon is more feature complete than Bluesky, with polls, favorites, boosts (i.e. retweets), and saving posts. It seems to have a more decentralized and privacy-focused community, so isn’t as popular with the general public.
But what if, like me, you weren’t really a twitter user in the first place. What if there are other platforms you want to move away from. Are there any alternatives for those?
Meta
I’ve been bored of Facebook for a while now. Every time I go on I will see one post I may be interested then it will be nothing but advertisements over and over and oh… there’s someone I know … and over and over and over…
Still, Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp are the main ways I communicate with my friends and family. So I’ve hung onto them purely for that aspect of them. But after Trump’s inauguration, Meta has decided to remove fact-checking, and has ended its DEI programs. Meta’s recent policy changes, along with its association with Trump, have reinforced my decision to leave.
Threads is easy to replace, since it was supposed to be a Twitter substitute, you can just substitute Bluesky or Mastadon instead. Whatsapp and Messenger are also easy to replace, with apps like Signal and Telegram that basically do the same thing.
Facebook and Instagram are both much harder to move on from. Friendica and Nostr seem to be suggested a lot, but Friendica isn’t too user friendly with its server directory, and I couldn’t get Nostr to work. Sure, with a bit of time investment a more technically savvy person can get these to work, but the casual user doesn’t want to worry about server selection or manually storing encryption keys.
Bluesky have announced an Instagram alternative called Flashes coming out soon, so there is hope on the horizon. There’s almost certainly a company or startup somewhere working on a Facebook alternative to try and break into the market right now.
Despite these alternatives, there is still a problem. As I said at the beginning, Meta apps are the main ways I communicate with my friends and family. And if I choose to switch to a new app it doesn’t mean they will as well. So as much as I want to move away from Meta, I’ll still be hanging on to these apps for now, even if I will be using them less.
Beyond social media, tech companies as a whole seem to be shifting their policies in response to the new administration.
Google, for example, forgot their mantra of “Don’t Be Evil” again. They removed holidays like Black History Month and Pride since Trump’s inauguration, and have also renamed the Gulf of Mexico in every country’s version of their map (except Mexico), despite it not even being fully accepted within the USA. Both of these steps taken together do not bode well for the future of the company.
Alternative search engines do exist. Bing and DuckDuckGo are the most popular. Bing is Microsoft’s alternate search engine that has always been the underdog, but maybe it’s good enough to use these days. DuckDuckGo on the other hand is basically Bing without the tracking. It can be less intelligent with its search results, but the lack of data harvesting can set your mind at ease.
There are also alternative maps around. Apple maps was my go to in China before I learned how to read Chinese and switched to Baidu. For general purpose there are apps such as Organic Maps and Magic Earth which are free to use.
To replace Gmail there’s always Outlook, but other alternatives, such as ProtonMail, and end-to-end encrypted email provider. Alternatives to Google Docs can be difficult to find. Microsoft Office is pretty good, but it comes with a subscription fee. There’s also OpenOffice, but I’ve found it clunkier and less feature complete the times I’ve used it.
Google Drive is easily replaced with something like Dropbox. This company’s been around for years, so they’re good at what they do.
But ultimately there is a problem with these alternatives if you’re already in the Google workspace. It’s a huge shift in how you work, and it may require others agreeing to shift with you. A company will be unlikely to invest in retraining everyone in new software when the current setup already works.
Where Do We Go From Here?
It’s unfortunate when things get to a point when you have to consider politics when choosing a product to use or not use. And when you do, you realise how hard it is to get away from the infrastructure that’s been built up for decades in both your work life and your personal life.
And who’s to say the alternatives will be any better? A lot of software starts out great in the beginning, but eventually reaches a point where it is unusable, full of adverts and AI posts overwhelming the reason that you used it in the first place.
Perhaps this is just part of the cycle. I grew up on MySpace, and witnessed the slow switch over to Facebook and Twitter. I used Stumbleupon and Digg to explore the internet before reddit became the front page of the internet. Perhaps we are at the end of a cycle and a new era of social media is about to begin.
Or could it be that the age of social media is coming to an end?
- It was a Nazi Salute. There is no doubt. ↩︎
