Twitter has always been a wretched hive of scum and villainy regardless of what fandom you are a part of, what political spectrum you see, or what religion you practice. The early days of memes, sharing cool and interesting things, and funny jokes is generally over and has now become large echo chambers where weirdos scream for the sake of screaming to feel important.
Whatever your reason might be, a lot of people are looking for another platform to become a part of that still retains the feel of what Twitter was to them in its early days. So, we’ve scoured the tech space to look for a handful of established and up-and-coming platforms that might break your need for Twitter. Let us know which one of the following you’ve tried or any that we have missed for a possible follow-up list!
- . Post News
-
The newest site on this list, Post News has a lot of buzz around its current beta launch. The platforms goal is to return to the age when social media was fun and helped introduce users to new ideas, cool people, and had the ability to make you smarter. Heady claims for an upstart but journalists and intellectuals seem to be really onboard at the moment. Post News is striving to be the so-called “virtual watercooler for journalists” and bills itself as a place to access “premium news content without subscriptions or ads.” The waitlist sits at the hundreds of thousands, but this is for a good reason as approvals are slow as to not overload the servers. We love the super clean look and ease of use, making Post News one of the most exciting new platforms that its creators say “will be a civil place to debate ideas; learn from experts, journalists, individual creators, and each other; converse freely; and have some fun.”
- . Tumblr
-
One of the original social media platforms, Tumblr was a haven for millennial teens to vent, create, and be weird with their friends. It’s had its own struggles over the years with a number of redesigns and content moderation issues, but people seem to be flocking back to the platform because they are sick of Twitter and also want that nostalgia from their youth. The main difference here is that your Tumblr page is more like a blog that you host on the platform and you can share a lot more than you can on Twitter. Tumblr does have an advertiser presence, but you can get rid of ads for $4.99 a month. I enjoy the art aspect of the site and it currently feels a lot more focused on showing and sharing cool things than any crazy discourse and weird fetishes, although there is that too if you want. So, if you want to go back to the old days of weird fandoms and hashtags, go grab your emo makeup and give Tumblr another try.
- . Mastodon
-
Probably the biggest Twitter competitor at the moment, so much so that links to the platform seem to be blocked by Twitter raising serious legal concerns, Mastodon prides itself on being a decentralized and open source social media platform that looks and feels a lot like old Twitter. Unlike Twitter though, Mastodon users have a 500 word post limit and the ability to make posts private if they so choose. The fact that its decentralized and not commercial means that their is no company monopolizing your communication and/or what you see. The site is laid out across mastodon servers, with various instances depending on region and topic with usernames acting like email addresses. This makes jumping into Mastodon a bit of a challenge at first and a bit confusing, but it might just be worth a look, especially for the more professional and news-focused set.
- . Counter.Social
-
This cloud-based social platform prides itself on its friendly userbase thanks to its implementation of strict rules that aim to tackle the spread of false information and the trolls that can easily sow chaos on other platforms. Counetr.Social is also free of advertisers and survives by charging $4.99 for Pro Accounts that offer those users additional features like being able to send DMs to other users. It features a basic layout with posts being displayed in chronological order. But one of the best features of the platform is that is includes a desktop interface that feels a lot like TweetDeck which we loved to use. This is great for those that don’t spend all their time tied to their phones. Your reach won’t be as large as Twitter on this one, but if people keep leaving Twitter and shifting over it could be the right home for many.
- . WT.Social
-
With a more Facebook-like look and feel, WT.Social co-founder Jimmy Wales said he was helped create WT.Social because ads and advertisers had let “low-quality” content take over both Facebook and Twitter. WT.Social does not prioritize sponsored content on user feeds and what users do see come from what they call sub-wikis that users choose to sign up for. WT.Social isn’t quite new as its essentially a rebranding of WikiTribune making this social platform predominantly news focused. The entire platform is funded by user donations and currently has a userbase of over 500,000 users. If you are looking for a news-focused social media platform that has fact-checking and accuracy measurements built into the core of its business model, then WT.Social might be for you. Still, the almost brutalist look and feel might keep younger users away.
About Author
