Alternative Social Networks, December 2020 Edition
Every year around the holidays I make a new year resolution to spend more time on less popular social networks and social media sites. I like to keep up with what new options are out there and revisit older platforms that I still have connections on. There are also plenty of reasons to avoid Facebook, and lately there's been enough ruckus about escaping Facebook that I'm publicizing my list again. Here are the sites and services I'll be using before[1] I use Facebook, from now til at least some point in the new year:
Reddit originated as a news sharing and discussion site like Digg, but has expanded to include many more social components, including personal posts, friends you can follow, etc. It is my favorite platform for organized deep discourse, owing to its large userbase, wide variety of topical groups, and fully nested reply model. A little known feature that makes it much more social-network-like is https://reddit.com/r/friends which functions like the "news feed" on other sites, showing posts by your friends no matter which subreddit they post in.
https://www.reddit.com/user/sparr/ | sparr | /u/sparr
Mastodon is an open source federated clone of Twitter. Federated means no single company controls the network, and you get to pick the server where your data lives while still being able to interact with other people on other servers, sorta like picking an email service (you use gmail.com and your email lives on google servers, but you can send and receive email from people using yahoo or microsoft, etc). It uses ActivityPub to interact with other services in the Fediverse, so you can use a Mastodon account to follow not only people on other Mastodon servers, but also on Pixelfed or Friendica or other services I'm not trying this year but will eventually.
https://mastodon.social/@sparr | @sparr@mastodon.social
Diaspora is an open source federated social network with functionality similar to early Facebook or LiveJournal.
https://joindiaspora.com/people/98ece344da783437 | sparr@joindiaspora.com
Dreamwidth is a clone of LiveJournal (one of the earliest personal blogging and social networking platforms), popularized when Russian influence on the company running LJ became too much for most communities to deal with. Content here tends to be long form posts, hundreds to thousands of words, often journal-like in nature but also many article-like posts. I still have an account on LJ as well, where all my DW content is automatically crossposted.
https://sparr.dreamwidth.org/ | sparr
NextDoor is a social network with a strong geographic component. You are limited to interacting with people who live near you, in areas as small as a neighborhood or as large as half a city. Some neighborhoods are great, some are very dysfunctional, most are somewhere in between.
https://nextdoor.com/profile/16322983/
MeWe seems to be somewhat filling the niche Google Plus failed to fill, with a social network that has a strong focus on interest-based groups and communities, including chat rooms for each community. I haven't found it to be particularly engaging in the past, but it's the most niche option I see people recommend with any frequency so I'm giving it another chance this year
https://mewe.com/i/sparr | sparr
WT.Social is a microblogging and social network platform created by a founder of Wikipedia with some of the same ideals, mixing the social news aspect of WikiTribune with more social network and media ideas from other more mainstream services. It works a lot like classic Facebook, with one notable exception: Content can be, and often is, marked as being editable by other group members, so informative posts can be kept up to date and corrected, like articles in a wiki (groups are even called "subwikis").
https://wt.social/u/sparr-risher
Parler is a newcomer to the scene, designed and marketed as a "free speech" alternative to Twitter and Facebook. What this really means is that it's a strong echo chamber for mostly-American conservative / right-wing / Republican ideas and [mis]information. I don't think much good will ever come of it, but I'm going to try it out as a place to find eager people to argue with.
https://parler.com/profile/sparr0 | @sparr0
Spacehey is someone's idea to bring back MySpace from scratch. Maybe it will catch on, maybe not. Let's find out.
https://spacehey.com/profile?id=2877
Fetlife is an adult oriented social network, often described as "Facebook for kinky people". It has short and long form posting, friends and followers, groups, events, etc.
https://fetlife.com/sparr
Twitter is not at all unpopular or niche, so I don't feel the need to describe it here, but I'm including it because I'm trying to use it more and because it's not especially popular in my social circles.
https://twitter.com/sparr0 | @sparr0
Facebook is obviously the opposite of what this list is meant to be, but I'm including it since I'm posing this to some non-FB sites and some people might want to find my FB profile.
https://facebook.com/sparr0 | sparr0 | @Sparr Risher
Keybase is a service for secure identity management and verification that also offers file sharing and chat. In particular, it provides a way to cryptographically prove that your accounts on two different sites belong to the same person, and separately to prove that you are that person.
https://keybase.io/sparr | sparr
If there's a platform you're using that I've missed and you think I should give a chance, let me know. I'll potentially update this list through December, but it will probably be static once January arrives.
[1] The way I implement this is that whenever I feel the urge to visit Facebook, I instead open a bookmark folder full of social network links in tabs, and the last one is Facebook. I start reading, responding, and/or posting from the top of the list, and if I’m not satisfied and/or bored by the time I get to Facebook then, and only then, will I start reading and replying and posting there.
Reddit originated as a news sharing and discussion site like Digg, but has expanded to include many more social components, including personal posts, friends you can follow, etc. It is my favorite platform for organized deep discourse, owing to its large userbase, wide variety of topical groups, and fully nested reply model. A little known feature that makes it much more social-network-like is https://reddit.com/r/friends which functions like the "news feed" on other sites, showing posts by your friends no matter which subreddit they post in.
https://www.reddit.com/user/sparr/ | sparr | /u/sparr
Mastodon is an open source federated clone of Twitter. Federated means no single company controls the network, and you get to pick the server where your data lives while still being able to interact with other people on other servers, sorta like picking an email service (you use gmail.com and your email lives on google servers, but you can send and receive email from people using yahoo or microsoft, etc). It uses ActivityPub to interact with other services in the Fediverse, so you can use a Mastodon account to follow not only people on other Mastodon servers, but also on Pixelfed or Friendica or other services I'm not trying this year but will eventually.
https://mastodon.social/@sparr | @sparr@mastodon.social
Diaspora is an open source federated social network with functionality similar to early Facebook or LiveJournal.
https://joindiaspora.com/people/98ece344da783437 | sparr@joindiaspora.com
Dreamwidth is a clone of LiveJournal (one of the earliest personal blogging and social networking platforms), popularized when Russian influence on the company running LJ became too much for most communities to deal with. Content here tends to be long form posts, hundreds to thousands of words, often journal-like in nature but also many article-like posts. I still have an account on LJ as well, where all my DW content is automatically crossposted.
https://sparr.dreamwidth.org/ | sparr
NextDoor is a social network with a strong geographic component. You are limited to interacting with people who live near you, in areas as small as a neighborhood or as large as half a city. Some neighborhoods are great, some are very dysfunctional, most are somewhere in between.
https://nextdoor.com/profile/16322983/
MeWe seems to be somewhat filling the niche Google Plus failed to fill, with a social network that has a strong focus on interest-based groups and communities, including chat rooms for each community. I haven't found it to be particularly engaging in the past, but it's the most niche option I see people recommend with any frequency so I'm giving it another chance this year
https://mewe.com/i/sparr | sparr
WT.Social is a microblogging and social network platform created by a founder of Wikipedia with some of the same ideals, mixing the social news aspect of WikiTribune with more social network and media ideas from other more mainstream services. It works a lot like classic Facebook, with one notable exception: Content can be, and often is, marked as being editable by other group members, so informative posts can be kept up to date and corrected, like articles in a wiki (groups are even called "subwikis").
https://wt.social/u/sparr-risher
Parler is a newcomer to the scene, designed and marketed as a "free speech" alternative to Twitter and Facebook. What this really means is that it's a strong echo chamber for mostly-American conservative / right-wing / Republican ideas and [mis]information. I don't think much good will ever come of it, but I'm going to try it out as a place to find eager people to argue with.
https://parler.com/profile/sparr0 | @sparr0
Spacehey is someone's idea to bring back MySpace from scratch. Maybe it will catch on, maybe not. Let's find out.
https://spacehey.com/profile?id=2877
Fetlife is an adult oriented social network, often described as "Facebook for kinky people". It has short and long form posting, friends and followers, groups, events, etc.
https://fetlife.com/sparr
Twitter is not at all unpopular or niche, so I don't feel the need to describe it here, but I'm including it because I'm trying to use it more and because it's not especially popular in my social circles.
https://twitter.com/sparr0 | @sparr0
Facebook is obviously the opposite of what this list is meant to be, but I'm including it since I'm posing this to some non-FB sites and some people might want to find my FB profile.
https://facebook.com/sparr0 | sparr0 | @Sparr Risher
Keybase is a service for secure identity management and verification that also offers file sharing and chat. In particular, it provides a way to cryptographically prove that your accounts on two different sites belong to the same person, and separately to prove that you are that person.
https://keybase.io/sparr | sparr
If there's a platform you're using that I've missed and you think I should give a chance, let me know. I'll potentially update this list through December, but it will probably be static once January arrives.
[1] The way I implement this is that whenever I feel the urge to visit Facebook, I instead open a bookmark folder full of social network links in tabs, and the last one is Facebook. I start reading, responding, and/or posting from the top of the list, and if I’m not satisfied and/or bored by the time I get to Facebook then, and only then, will I start reading and replying and posting there.