Social Media Platforms If You Don’t Want Twitter Drama

Twitter has been engulfed in chaos since billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the helm, cutting the company’s workforce in half, improving the platform’s verification system, restoring previously banned accounts — including those of white nationalists — and suspended journalists who covered him.

While it’s not clear whether the drama is causing many users to leave — in fact, having a front-row seat to the chaos may be entertaining for some — lesser-known sites Mastodon and even Tumblr are emerging as new (or renewed) alternatives. front Here is a look at some of them.

(Oh, and if you leave Twitter and want to preserve your tweet history, you can download it by going to your profile settings and clicking on “your account” and then “download an archive of your data.”)

Sharing a name with an extinct mammal that resembles an elephant, Mastodon has emerged as a front-runner among those curious about life beyond the blue bird. It shares some similarities with Twitter, but there are some big differences—and not just that the version of tweets is officially called “toots.”

Mastodon is a decentralized social network. This means it is not owned by a single company or billionaire. Rather, it consists of a network of servers that each run independently but are able to connect so that people on different servers can communicate. There are no ads as Mastodon is funded by donations, grants and other means.

Mastodon’s feed is chronological, unlike Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or Twitter, which all use algorithms to get people to spend as much time on a site as possible.

Trying to log into Mastodon can be a bit daunting. Because each server is managed separately, you’ll first need to choose one you want to join, then go through the steps to create an account and agree to the server’s rules. There are general and interest and location based, but ultimately it won’t really matter. Once you’re in, the feed is reminiscent of Twitter. You can write (up to 500 characters), post photos or videos, and follow accounts, as well as see a general public feed.

“We offer a vision of social media that cannot be bought and owned by any billionaire, and strive to create a more resilient global platform without profit incentives,” says Mastodon’s website.

Currently, the site has more than 2 million users, nearly a quarter of whom signed up after Musk took over Twitter on Oct. 27, according to founder Eugen Rochko.

Another option that is getting a lot of talk, especially among journalists, is Post News. Post, writes founder Noam Bardin “will be a civil place to debate ideas; learn from experts, journalists, individual creators and each other; chat freely; and to have fun.”

But for now there is a long waiting list to join.

Do you remember Clubhouse, when we were all locked up and couldn’t talk in person? It’s the buzzing audio-only app that’s been somewhat overshadowed by copycat Twitter Spaces, which also lets people talk to each other (think conference call, podcast, or “audio chat”) about topics of interest.

Once you’ve joined, Clubhouse lets you start or listen to conversations on a host of topics, from technology to professional sports, parenting, black literature and more. There are no posts, photos or videos – just people’s profile pictures and their votes. Conversations can be intimate, like a phone call, or can include thousands of people listening to a talk in bold, like a conference or stage interview.

For longer reads, newsletters, and general information gathering, these sites are perhaps closest to the blogging era of the early 2000s. You can read both without signing up or paying, but some authors, creators, and podcasters create premium content for paying subscribers.

Almost left for dead, Tumblr seems to be enjoying something of a revival. The words/photos/art/video site is known for its devoted fan base and has been home to angry posts from celebrities like Taylor Swift. It angered many users in 2018 when it banned pornography and “adult content,” which made up a large part of its highly visual and meme-friendly online presence, and led to a big drop in its user base.

Onboarding is simple, and for those who miss the early years of social media, there’s a decidedly retro, comforting feel to the site.

Gabor Cselle, a Google veteran who worked at Twitter from 2014 to 2016, is determined to create a better Twitter. For now, he calls it T2 and says the web domain name he bought for it — t2.social — costs $7.16. T2, which may or may not be its final name, is currently accepting entries for its waiting list, but the website is clearly not yet operational.

“I think Twitter always had a problem figuring out what to do and how to decide what to do. And it was always in the back of my mind,” Cselle told The Associated Press. “I decided to just go for it. I haven’t seen anyone else really do that.”

Twitter-style text and TikTok-style videos are one idea. Cselle says that for this to work, the text really needs to be “amplified” so that it is not drowned out by the videos.

“My bet is that it’s going to be easier and more efficient to build a better Twitter or public square now than to fix the legacy problems at Twitter,” Cselle added.

Of course, Cselle is not the only one who seizes the opportunity. Project Mushroom, for example, plans a “safe place on the internet – a community-led open source home for creators seeking justice on an overheated planet” and says it has received 25,000 early joins to its yet-to-be-launched platform.

“My feeling is that things are going to fragment further into more ideological platforms and some will die and then we’ll see a new consolidation emerge over the next few years,” said Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a professor at Syracuse University who study social media.

One of Twitter’s most valuable features has been the way it allows people to find information in seconds. Was it just an earthquake? Twitter will tell you. Or at least it did.

While there’s no perfect replacement for Twitter, it’s easier than ever to keep up with local, national and international news. Apple and Google both offer news services that aggregate articles from a wide range of publications (Apple offers a premium subscription service that gives you access to more articles, while Google shows free stories first.) There’s also Flipboard, which is sort of a personal work work. magazine curated to your interests.

Of course, subscribing to individual publications (or downloading a free news app like the AP’s AP News) is also an option.

Yes, you may have to pay for some of them and no, you won’t get a blue checkmark with your subscription.