The Best Social Media Sites To Join If You Want To Leave Twitter
HIve and Mastodon are good alternative social media platforms if you are looking to leave Twitter.
The end of Twitter felt closer than ever last week when hundreds of engineers and developers began leaving the company following an ultimatum from Elon Musk. Several questionable decisions by the new CEO, like reinstating banned accounts and introducing verification fees, have also caused people to take their social media musings elsewhere. Luckily, there are a few platforms that could fill that micro-blogging-sized void away from Discord, Parler, TikTok, and Truth Social.
Founded in 2019, Hive Social is available as a mobile app for Apple and as a beta on Android. The social media platform offers a chronological feed instead of an algorithm-determined one. According to NPR, the site does not partake in “shadow banning” or prioritize certain accounts. However, it does promise to bring back what folks used to love about social media in a new way.
Some aspects of Hive are reminiscent of the MySpace era with its profile music feature. The social media site is also very photo-forward, like Instagram and Tumblr. Despite being run by just two people, the platform is experiencing rapid growth amid Twitter’s chaos. This has caused its founders to urgently ramp up their crowdfunding. Earlier this week, the app passed the one million user mark, despite its email verification process not working.
Mastodon is another popular alternative to Twitter, receiving the most interest in recent weeks. Founded in 2014, the social media platform allows users to join different servers run by various groups and individuals instead of a central platform controlled by a single company. Because the site is free of ads, it is supported through crowdfunding and is called a federation. But its sign-up process is a little complicated.
Folks who want to join Mastodon will be prompted to choose a server. These are often categorized by city, or interests like gaming, and technology. Interest group servers are also organized into sub-themes. But server choice isn’t really important since users can follow people on other servers too. The only downside is that server owners can tell moderators to manually approve new accounts on the social media site. And sometimes, folks might need an invitation from someone already on the site before joining.
Unfortunately, Mastodon does not offer some of the features Twitter users have become accustomed to. There isn’t anything similar to a “quote tweet” option and direct messages can potentially be read by a server’s moderator. Still, the social media site has gained a lot of new users due to Elon Musk’s shenanigans. The platform recorded 2.5 million active monthly users this week.
Another social media site worth exploring is Cohost. Still, in the beta version, people can up without an invite or access code. But there is a day-long wait period before you have access to your new profile, IGN reports. The company’s website also has a list of new features which will be introduced in the near future. This includes a virtual tip jar and subscription feature, where users can share posts exclusively with people who have signed up.
