Social Media Alternatives

Discussion in 'Gadgets & Tech Talk' started by Ken Anderson, Nov 10, 2020.

  1. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    Due to major election year interference and censorship of opposing views, a lot of people are looking for alternatives to Facebook, Twitter, and some others, such as YouTube. The problem, of course, is that nothing is going to replace Facebook as long as everyone we know is on Facebook.

    Still, it's nice to look around at alternatives, in the hopes that enough people will move to one or the other of them to form a worthwhile alternative.

    Most of the alternatives are conservative or Christian, and that's fine, but I'd rather have one that allows members to be whatever they want to be, without censoring one view and promoting another.

    For myself, I don't need an alternative to Twitter because I rarely log into my Twitter account on purpose. Probably, the only times I have been there in the last couple of years have been when I followed a link that brought me there, and I was automatically logged into my account. But, for those who desire an alternative to Twitter, Parler seems to be the most popular.

    There are more Facebook alternatives, which shouldn't be surprising. Since Facebook-type platforms are free and open source, pretty much anyone who can afford the hosting can start their own Facebook alternative site, and a lot of people have. The problem with that is that if they start getting popular, as they would have to do in order to actually be an alternative, many of these people don't have the resources to handle high traffic, and they crash. As an additional concern, once they gain popularity, they become targets for hacking and DDOS attacks.

    Gaining popularity as a Facebook alternative, MeWe has been pretty buggy lately. People who have followed my invite link to join MeWe are sometimes brought to an advertising page that may allow them to create a MeWe account but it doesn't follow up by giving them the alternative to accept my invitation, and when they try to search for me on MeWe, they are unable to find my account. When I try to search for them instead, I have the same problem.

    Someone invited me to join USA Life, and when I clicked on their link, I learned that I had already joined USA Life a year ago, but hadn't done anything with my account. I like USA Life well enough, as it certainly has the look and feel of Facebook, but no one I know is there, so it's like talking to myself.

    Minds is one that I joined a couple of years ago, and liked, but every time they did an upgrade, they moved all the furniture around and I couldn't figure out how to find or do anything.

    Of course, unless one of the Facebook alternatives gains enough popularity to draw people from Facebook, as Facebook did to MySpace, there will be no real alternatives.
     
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  2. Ed Wilson

    Ed Wilson Veteran Member
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    An alternative to social media would be getting off your butt and doing something and focusing on what's real and around you. I can't spend a lot of time on the computer.
     
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    Beth Gallagher likes this.
  3. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    I work on my computer and I live thousands of miles away from everyone I am related to, attended high school or college with, worked with at various places around the country, and who were my friends when I lived in other places, so Facebook certainly has a place in my life. I'd rather it not be Facebook, however.
     
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  4. Beth Gallagher

    Beth Gallagher Supreme Member
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    I don't have a Facebook account, nor Twitter, or any other that I can think of. The only social media I use are a couple of discussion forums. Our children are scattered across the country so we communicate the old fashioned way... on the phone.
     
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