Twitter Alternatives

[yendi]

Like many folks, I used to spend a lot of time on Twitter. I don’t anymore, because while it was far from perfect before, Elon Musk has systematically made it a worse place, and on top of that, I refuse to provide him with any new content. 

 

That means I’ve been checking other social media spaces that cover the same (or similar) mix of microblogging and connectivity (technically, Facebook could fit in this category, but I think everyone agrees that it doesn’t). I’ve spent a decent amount of time looking at three of them. I’ll talk about them in order.

 

(At risk of saying the obvious, I didn’t bother with Gab, Mewe, Truth Social, etc. I also tried Threads long enough to realize it sucks, and isn’t worth considering.)

 

Also note that my primary use of any social media platform is on the desktop, but all of these have mobile apps that function well.

 

1. Mastodon.  

 

This was the big option during the initial post-Musk exodus, 

 

Ease of setup: Medium. Mastodon’s whole shtick is that’s it’s part of the Fediverse, which means that accounts on different servers can interact and talk with each other. It’s not inherently dissimilar from email; you’ve got an account on Gmail, I’ve got one on Yahoo, and protocols allow us to talk. But that means that, as with email, you can sign up with any of a bunch of Mastodon instances. And each instance has certain rules (ranging from post length to what kind of speech is not allowed). So the first step was finding a good instance (and note that most instances eventually run out of new accounts). 

 

Account setup itself was fine — not much different from any other service, to be honest. But then came the real tricky part — if you want to move to another instance (which I’ve had to do twice since two different Mastodon hosts shut down*), you’ve got to go through a process of migrating your account, noting that you only actually can migrate profile info and followers, not your actual content. So everything you wrote on the previous profile will be lost if the old server shuts down.

 

Ease of use: Mastodon offers a “simple” and an “advanced” interface. The former looks like classic Twitter, while the latter is like classic Tweetdeck. I love the advanced one, as I can keep columns for replies, hashtags I want to follow, groups of users, etc. Posting is as easy as on Twitter, and there’s a good interface for adding alt text to images. The only major “missing” feature from Twitter is quote-tweeting. This is deliberate, as the creators didn’t like the use of that tool for dunks. While that’s valid, it also means that the use of quote-tweeting for additive discussions is also gone. And as many folks from the community noted, Black Twitter used quote-tweets heavily, and the casual dismissal of their concerns led to Mastodon feeling like a not-very-welcoming place for them.

 

Note that because of the use of different servers, there’s now an option to see the firehose from your local timeline, which may be nice if you’re on a server with some sort of common interest (leftist politics, gaming, etc).

 

Mastodon also makes it really easy to tag posts with content warnings (including images), and users can have their view configured to either ignore CWs or hide content until they click through.

 

Culture/Network Effect: Mastodon’s got a huge amount of small communities of interest. It also has a lot of news organizations (the timing of Musk’s destruction of Twitter helped), and a lot of journalists. There are some big Twitter Names there (Scalzi, Gaiman, Takei), though it’s worth noting that they’re all on BlueSky as well. I’ve generally found Mastodon’s more interesting as a place to consume and post than to really interact. It’s not that there aren’t good conversations there, just that it’s not what really drives the platform.

 

2. BlueSky. 

 

This one started as an invite-only site, so it built up slowly (note that it’s now open for public access). It’s also built on a federated platform (like Mastodon), so in theory could allow for multiple servers and interactions with Mastodon even. Right now, though, it’s effectively one site.

 

Ease of setup: Easy. It’s basically like setting up Twitter or any other site.

 

Ease of use: The standard interface for BlueSky is basically like simple Twitter. There’s an external site called deck.blue that allows you to gain a Tweetdeck-style interface (note that BlueSky’s ability to work with third-party apps is a bit more complicated than Twitter’s; to use a third-party app, instead of just using BlueSky to authenticate, you create an app password in BlueSky that you use in that app. It’s about two extra steps at the beginning, then it works as normal). BlueSky supports almost every Twitter feature minus two: Hashtags and direct messages. It’s got a good search engine, so the former is a minor (not major) annoyance. The latter is kind of big, because while DMs get abused, they’re also kind of crucial and a standard feature on literally every other social media platform (hell, we can even do them on DW).

 

Culture/Network Effect. Some Twitter groups came to BlueSky pretty whole-hog. SF/F Twitter, comics Twitter, a lot of Science Twitter, big parts of law Twitter (notably Ken “Popehat” White and Mike “Techdirt” Masnick), etc. What didn’t come from twitter was the confrontation culture; for whatever reason, “block don’t engage” actually stuck pretty well on BlueSky, so folks trolling/sealioning just get blocked. There are still legit debates/arguments, but bad faith users are generally shunted away. As with Mastodon, there’s an assumption that users should use alt-text on images, and failing to do so will likely get you called out.

 

3. NOSTR

 

This has gotten some traction for being the place where Jack Dorsey hangs out, as well as Edward Snowden. That should probably give you a sense of what’s coming.

 

Ease of setup: Bwahahaha! Oh holy shit. So NOSTR is decentralized like the other two, but relies on private/public security keys for verification and posting (which the others likely do underneath the hood, but the point is, it’s under the hood). So you’ll have security keys to track for starters. But it gets better! To truly confirm your account, you need to sign things, which means having a signing extension, and the main one that’s supported is Alby, which is also a Bitcoin Lightning wallet. Yes, NOSTR is a blockchain thing! Oh, and Alby accounts are invite only, invites are on a waitlist, but you can totally buy a Lightning wallet to link if you’d like (I got my invite because when I deleted Alby, I was able to fill out a survey about why I deleted, and when I mentioned the invite, they sent me one). But hey, once that’s all done, you’re in!

 

Ease of use: Well, it’s mostly Twitter-like. There probably are web clients that offer advanced Tweetdeck functionality, but the basic interface is bog-standard. No alt-text, but otherwise things work as expected, feature-wise. The “new” feature is the ability to “zap” posts, which basically means “tip,” but with tiny amounts of Bitcoin Lightning. 

 

Culture/Network Effect: Good fucking lord. It’s techbros and Bitcoinbros and their ilk all the way down. The big topic here is how Julian Assange is being mistreated. Then it’s all about Bitcoin and masculinity and finance and “big government bad.” It’s not Gab (this isn’t a place for religious conservatives), but it’s sure a pretty big cesspool.

 

Conclusion: BlueSky is where I’m spending most of my time. Mastodon still has a decent amount to offer. NOSTR sucks (though I’m keeping my account to check in on it periodically, since in theory, the culture and the tech could be separated). Worth noting: There’s still a ton of stuff only on Twitter. I’m a big AEW (pro wrestling) fan, and there’s one person active on BlueSky, no one really on Mastodon (or NOSTR). Same with almost any big field — Hollywood (Jeri Ryan, John Rogers, Bebe Neuwirth are on BlueSky, but that’s pretty much it), athletes, politicians, etc. At this point, it’s safe to say that no place replicates Twitter, including Twitter itself**. And I suspect that will continue to be the case moving forward.

 

Anyway, if you want to find me on either of the two I actually post on, here's me on BlueSky and on Mastodon.

 

*Mastodon hosts are committed to giving users three months notice before shutting down.

 

**I’ll start calling it “X” when Musk stops misgendering his daughter.

Comments

[siliconshaman]

Frankly, I'm questioning if I even want to be on social media anymore. I mean, my primary source of human contact nowadays is electronic... which is kind of the point, because Dark Gods, y'all are one crazy bunch of hairless apes !!

[yendi]

Heh. One of the good/frustrating things about social media though is that it's often a source of news, general information, and even good content (along with all the crap). The issue -- and this Medium piece I read today nails it to some degree -- is that it's become the only place as other sources have basically withered. I found out about Steve Miller (the SF author) dying yesterday on BlueSky, for instance (a sign that it's gaining traction for me as a network, at least for SF stuff)v not in any of my InoReader RSS feeds (where I'd likely have seen it before). I've got god knows how many open tabs because of things I found in social feeds. And it's often the only way to keep in touch and see what's going on with folks I know these days.