hi everyone,
in this article i will present to you, in my own personal way, alternatives to the ,,social media” used by most at this point
; owned by big corporations, full of ads, stealing your data, experimenting on our psyche by adding & removing features, apparently/allegedly also spying on you and your face expressions through the selfie-camera of phones in the case of facebook-owned instagram.
the question of whether or not social media is even ,,good” in the first place will not be raised here. to clarify, my momentary view on this is that people can do what they like, and if the social media is free from manipulation & oppression, i see no problem with the existence of such platforms. radical green anarchism would like to disagree, but i think every humyn should be able to manage what can be toxic in their own way.
so. there exists already a big collection of social platforms that are great alternatives, all collected in what is called the ,,FEDIVERSE”.
the most known one is MASTODON, in structure like twitter, where – since the instagram boycott of 20.december.2020 – many more people (including myself) have joined.
i will now explain a little how many such platforms are built; my explanation is based on explaining mastodon, since the general structure is basically the same in all platforms in the fediverse. (i am not a nerd on this, nor do i understand everything. the explanation will be basic & you are invited to give feedback if i make mistakes you notice, and you want to and have the capacity!).
first & foremost, mastodon is open-source and decentralised, meaning:
-> there is no one who owns it_runs it_controls it.
-> instead of being funded by ads, it is funded by donations of the people using it.
-> anyone can take the coding and create their own version of it (in the definition of ,,open-source”; the source code is open to public & can be freely used :) ).
-> this also means – since this platform (and the others in the fediverse!) are ,,federated” (will explain this later) – mastodon and the similar social platforms cannot be sold, nor go bankrupt, nor be completely blocked by government!
-> when someone takes the open source code to create it into their own version – aka their own server – it has a name: an INSTANCE.
all instances on mastodon are moderated and owned by the person.s who created it, called the ADMINs (short for administrator). most of the time, admins also have their own account and use the platform like anyone else, so everything is really more horizontal.
the structure of mastodon is FEDERATED, meaning it is a group of multiple instances communicating with each other, instead of one massive server holding everything.
so. if every instance on this platform is operated privately, how do they communicate with each other?
well, since the same ,,base-coding” is used (called a Standard Protocol) users from different instances can follow and communicate with each other. in the case of mastodon, the standard protocol used is Activitypub – or, to phrase it more correctly: the standard protocol that mastodon implements is activitypub.
many other applications implement activitypub, meaning that even users on different social platforms//applications that implement this standard protocol can interact with each other (for example a video posted on peertube can be seen in the feed of someone with a mastodon account)!
all these applications, platforms with activitypub are part of a big network called the FEDIVERSE (fediverse.party).
the fediverse has many services, including event-hosting, bitcoin-exchange, music platform, and much more.
here are my 3 favourite examples – if you want to check out more, go look on the website fediverse.party.
mastodon:
-> in structure like twitter.
-> interaction works by following/being followed, and ,,toots”, like twitter ,,tweets”, except that you have the possibility of writing 500characters instead of 140.
-> you can also post images.
-> in the toots and images you post, there is the great option of adding content warnings, meaning the text or image is hidden, and only the content warnings are showed. you can click on these – they act as a ,,show more” button – to be able to see the full image or text. some examples for the uses of this feature is if the text/images mentions or contains SA, violence, nudity, sexual content, but also eye contact or other things that some persons are sentitive to. this feature is not only used for sensitive content, but also if someone wants to shorten something that is very long.
-> there are many leftist, anarchist, queer, friendly instances (a short list will come in the end!), with clear guidelines and rules (the usual no racism, no queerphobia, no hate-speech, no ableism, no nazi symbolism etc), making it a great safer space. really, go check it out!
the ,,general mastodon” is indeed also based on these principles!
-> many of these instances(servers) have a list of servers that are banned from communication with the particular instance in question. this is for safety reasons, or just generally kein-bock-auf-nazis-ruining-our-space reasons, since there are also right-wing instances, nazi instances, and still toxic people there. so, by banning an instance from communicating with one’s own instance, all users/toots become invisible to people from the nazi/right-wing/etc instances, so the risk of being harassed is greatly minimised.
here is a list of mastodon instances i personally recommend:
-> mastodon.social is the general one. the rules & guidelines are also very correct so it’s cool to sign up there.
-> queer.party is a very big, colourful instance for queers* and the like!
-> todon.eu is a general leftist instance.
-> kolektiva.social is for anarchists.
-> anticapitalist.party is for anticapitalists.
-> chaos.social is also leftist, home to many german accounts i believe.
-> mastodon.lol is a server for antifascists, members of the lgbtq+ community, hackers, and the like.
-> radical.town
from my personal experience of being on mastodon a few days, the persons there are very respectful, open and friendly – it is great fun!; but most of all everyone is just themself.
pixelfed:
-> looks almost exactly like instagram.
-> the general rules/guidelines are the same as on mastodon.
-> all images are shown in chronological order, unlike the toxic algorithm on instagram.
-> no ads of course!
-> mostly artists and photographers use it, for the moment.
-> pixelfed.social is the most used instance. there aren’t that many yet, since pixelfed is much smaller in number of users than mastodon.
-> anar.chi.st is an anarchist pixelfed instance.
peertube:
-> a video-hosting website, like youtube.
-> peer.tube is the general instance. i think it is filled with pornography-related content now though, since it is so free. creating an account there shouldn’t be a problem though.
-> kolektiva.media is an anarchist instance for political content
-> yiny.org is a leftist instance where there are more musicians.
there also exists diaspora*, the very first federated social platform i have come into contact with, end of 2019. it does not belong to the fediverse and its structure is like a mixture between facebook and twitter.
if you are someone who likes spending time online on social platforms, i encourage you to check out these alternatives. i also encourage you to tell your friends and comrades about them, so we can all move away from the capitalist patriarchal colonialist platforms still used by most.
thank you for reading!
i also encourage you to check out the post (one of many!) of instagram user @cisturbed, titled ,,INSTAGRAM BOYCOTT”; it explains the reasons for the instagram boycott of 20.december.2020, cause of the recent influx of new users on mastodon.
sources:
-> post by instagram user @remakegodgayagain, titled ,,Why You Need to Join Mastodon”
-> Youtube video by Mastodon, titled ,,What is Mastodon” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPSbNdBmWKE
-> Youtube video by Simply Explained, titled ,,Distributed social media – Mastodon & Fediverse Explained” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S57uhCQBEk0
-> Mastodon and Fediverse websites: joinmastodon.org and fediverse.party
-> https://www.cnet.com/news/lawsuit-accuses-instagram-of-peeping-with-iphone-camera/
written in december 2020. edited in the months after.