Looking for focused alternatives to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc Not just for myself but for my family members and friends who I wish to keep in touch with… any other threads going on about this? Maybe have a general thread and subsequent migration movements, we really need to act on this social life fascist monopoly we’ve became hostages to…
as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.
George Orwell, 1944
Yeah the dudes slinging nazi salutes def aren’t fascist my guy
Just adding a bit of helpful context.
No you aren’t
Mundane abuse of the word “fascist” is pretty boring, admittedly, but I’m always ready to call it out.
Continue your bad faith, head in the sand vigil you dumb piece of shit.
It sounds like you’re interested after all. The full essay is here. 3 minute read.
Author was possibly the most famous ever democratic socialist, so a pretty credible source.
WhatsApp -> Simplex
I recommend Simplex over signal because its not tied to your phone number and has no identifiers.
The first messenger without user IDs
Though I agree with it being a good recommendation, Signal is BY FAR easier to set up and have people use. I think that’s what will help adoption.
But simplex seemed just as easy as signal to set up?
Pretty much the same in use IIRC.
Discoverability is the issue. It is one of the main reasons Signal sticks with phone numbers.
Everyone in my contact list is a potential Signal contact. That’s useful. Chat is still private.
If I want secret chats, I use Simplex.
Facebook: Friendica
instagram: Pixelfed
Whatsapp: Signal,MatrixThere’s a lot of decent Chinese alternatives, there’s a lot of decent fediverse alternatives, but other than that I’m not very sure
RedNote
😂
Consult privacyguides.org for guidance regarding new messaging and email solutions. I imagine you’ll probably want to ask your family to sign up for signal.
The only alternative to social media is the fediverse. The bad news is that the fediverse is not private. The good news is that frankly social media as a concept just isn’t mandatory, so if nobody signs up, you can just keep in contact with your friend and family using signal.
Consult privacyguides.org for guidance regarding new messaging and email solutions. I imagine you’ll probably want to ask your family to sign up for signal.
The only alternative to social media is the fediverse. The bad news is that the fediverse is not private. The good news is that frankly social media as a concept just isn’t mandatory, so if you need privacy, you can just…not. Once you break the addiction, you realize how unnecessary it all was.
Thanks for the suggestions, whats the issue in making pms within the fedivese e2e encrypted?
Honestly I don’t know what the issue is on a technical level, I just know they are not encrypted and won’t be for the foreseeable future.
Mastodon, Pixelfed, Signal.
Pixelfed is currently experiencing massive growth so that is a good Instagram alternative to focus on at the moment.
What’s App : Signal.
Instagram: Pixelfed
TikTok: loops
YouTube: peertube
Xitter: Mastodon (pleroma, akkoma, etc …)
Google maps: open street map
Reddit: Lemmy 😉
Google search: duck duck go, startpage
I’ll let you Google the names of the different apps.
On phone instead of google maps I recommend Organic Maps! Best way to use open street map.
OSMAnd is another option, it’s better in some ways, but worse in others.
No love for Bluesky as a Xitter alternative?
Use mastodon and bridge your account to bluesky and ask people who you follow to please follow the bridge (or just join mastodon) so you can interact.
Bluesky is slightly better than twitter in that it’s distributed and does technically have federation. But federation on bluesky means you just mirror the entire network which makes it non-feasible for self hosters and small communities. Not to mention that once they do enshittify that they will probably pull some tomfoolery to keep people from migrating their PDS, to whatever relay they want.
It’s a good temporary alternative. Will probably enshittify down the line, but for now it’s okay.
Didn’t bsky turn on federation last year?
Bsky seems like a good alternative now. Though unlike Mastodon, it does come with an expiration date until it turns to shit. I use it alongside mastodon as that is where most Twitter folks fled to. Just, I would not put all my eggs on the bsky basket.
I mean, that should be everyone’s stance when it comes to online stuff, even for the fediverse as nobody knows if/when the server owner might go crazy or the host goes boom, people should always be ready to jump ship or to try a new service searching for something better
Bsky is just another corporate venture, it is probably better than any other commercial alternative but it will inevitably go the same route as the others people are fleeing.
Bluesky isn’t a twitter alternative, it’s staged opposition.
Facebook: friendica
I kind of liked hubzilla last I dabbled in one of those type apps.
Haven’t heard of that. If it’s centralized it’s a hard no for me though so hopefully it’s not
https://hubzilla.org/page/info/admin_guide
Similar to Friendica, personal page style fediverse software.
Matrix for discord as well.
Adding in yt-dlp. Not a platform but a useful tool to download youtube videos for archival or redistribution.
Hotel: trivago…
Ok jokes aside, add to that:
Whatsapp: SimpleX, Matrix Google Photos: Immich Reddit: Lemmy, Mbin, and Piefed
Signal: SimpleX
Google search: duck duck go, startpage
DuckDuckGo has a history of working with Microsoft to track users. Startpage is straight up owned by advertising company.
Use a search engine proxy like 4get, or a full meta search engine like SearXNG or MetaGer that pulls its data from multiple sources at once.
Facebook is a bad idea. All of those that link back to your real identity seem to get so bad so fast. I have never had one and just text people, email them, visit them in person. I don’t need everyone to know everything all the time and can’t understand why anyone does.
You’re already here.
Yeah and I love it but this is still very tech niche and looking for an instant messaging solution. I don’t want to become a pariah socially isolated in regards to my friends and family…
US Postal Service
Why flock anywhere? Lemmy is the extent of my social media sine the reddit API changes.
You don’t need social media.
Remember… when you’re killing time it’s killing you back.
Being productive is an effective way to waste one’s life.
Maximize wasting time. None of your or almost anyone’s works will be remembered.
Everything in moderation. Including moderation.
I have wasted time, and now doth time waste me
Fucking awesome quote. I’m going to keep that one in my back pocket.
Facebook: Delete it. Not necessary. I’ve had a happy and fulfilling life without ever going near that misery pit.
Instagram: This is just Facebook again.
WhatsApp: just learn or invent a coded language and use it to talk to family and friends.
90% of these apps are doing nothing good for you. You don’t need to replace them, you need to quit them and start touching grass. I’m also talking to myself here.
Talking all day to people you never see physically is damaging your brain.
Sure but not what OP asked about
I think you’re right but my only issue is permanently loosing contact with old friends from different countries… If there’s a change of phone numbers then I might not be able to contact them ever again…
Touch grass? It’s -20C/-4F and there is snow outside :-(
Touch that frozen grass then :)
Ah, then it’s obviously take all of your clothes off and go roll around in the snow
To touch grass I open https://quwhack.itch.io/touch-grass-simulator
