Twitter alternatives for the Musk-averse

Twitter alternatives for the Musk-averse

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter users (and ex-users) are still watching to see what the next chapter will be in the soap opera called “What Elon Musk Will Do With Twitter Next.” Oops — sorry. It’s no longer Twitter now, is it? It’s some weird new entity called “X.”

If you’re becoming bored with the whole thing and you want to continue following social networking without having to deal with Twitter (let’s still call it that for now), where do you go?

While, at least so far, nothing has become the byword that Twitter became, there are a number of services that are currently vying for the title of “Twitter Alternative of the 2020s.” So far, most don’t have the size and scale of Twitter, and it’s hard to say if any of them will attract enough followers to give it a run for its money. In fact, it’s possible that nothing will become the combined news / gossip / conversation / spam source that Twitter was.

Some of them ape the real-time feed of Twitter, but most provide a different take on what a social network can look like. Depending on what you get out of Twitter — perhaps you use it to broadcast your work, or maybe you use it to keep up with news events, or maybe you use it to connect with other Twitter users — you might prefer some of these options over others. But take a look and see if any seem worth checking out.

Threads

Currently, Threads doesn’t distinguish between posts from those you’re following and everyone else.

Threads is closely intertwined with Instagram.

The latest of the Twitter wannabes, Threads has started with a couple of advantages — it hasn’t started with an invite-only introduction, and it is an outcrop of Instagram. If you already have an Instagram account, you don’t even have to register; you simply log in using your Instagram account (and you can get to Threads by going to your Instagram profile and looking for the curly icon at the top). It has familiar icons for like, comment, and share; you can also repost and quote another entry. And according to a support page, some settings apply to both apps — so if you delete your Threads account, you’re deleting your Instagram account as well.

Posts can be up to 500 characters in length; you can add links and photos as well as videos up to five minutes long. You can delete an entry but not edit it, and you can limit who can reply to your entries (but as of this writing, you could not control what or who appeared in your feed). When this was being written, you could only access Threads via an iOS or Android app. Whether it will be the Twitter alternative has yet to be seen; certainly, it has managed to generate a good amount of excitement during its first days.

Mastodon

Mastodon is a decentralized social network; you choose which server you want to join.

Mastodon is often cited as the most likely replacement for Twitter, although there are very distinct differences. You don’t join Mastodon per se; you join a specific server (also known as an instance) run by an organization, individual, or group of individuals. The moderation policies are determined by each group (although there are basic moderation policies that apply to all the servers). However, you’re not limited to a single server; you can follow people or have followers from other servers, and you can change servers — or create your own.

On Mastodon, you post toots rather than tweets (although the usage of that term has pretty much fallen out of fashion) with a 500-character limit per post; you can attach images, a video, or an audio file, and you can edit your posts after they are published. Hashtags are encouraged to help people find your content, and there are apps for iOS and Android devices. (There is also a site with a bunch of tips, Mastodon’s help site, and a variety of other places to find help. )

To sign up, you go to https://joinmastodon.org/ and click on “Create account” or on the Servers link at the top of the page to choose which server you want to sign up for. You can also go to Fedi.Garden, which offers what it describes as an “easy and stress-free way of choosing a Fediverse server.” You can choose to search by topic and / or language. Some will let you join immediately; others have waitlists. You can join a larger, generalized instance such as mastodon.social or mstdn.social, or you can opt for a more specified instance such as graphics.social or disabled.social.

TikTok

TikTok has added a text option that lets you simply post words rather than images.

You can change your text’s color, typeface, size, and background — and add stickers and music as well.

TikTok has been a popular (if sometimes controversial) social media for short video clips. Now, it has added words as well. A new text option on its main Camera page allows you to post text-only entries in a variety of colors, typefaces, type sizes, and formats. You can publish up to 1,000 characters and can embellish your text with music, a background color, and stickers; as with videos, your followers can stitch, duet, and comment on the entry. The entry can be saved as a story or simply posted to your feed.

It is interesting that, just as Twitter — sorry, X — has continued to implode, TikTok, which has made a name for itself as a video-based social media, is pushing into the creative text arena. It will be fascinating to see what TikTokers do with this new ability.

Reddit

Reddit is divided into a multitude of interest groups known as subreddits.

Reddit is a well-known network that has been around for quite a while. The site is modeled off of classic message boards, and so doesn’t look or act the same as a Twitter feed — instead, it is divided into subgroups, known as subreddits, and you can join whatever subreddit piques your interest — anime, crochet, Star Wars, sci-fi literature, or whatever flavor of politics, religion, or social topics you may want to chat about.

There can be more than one subreddit handling a different aspect of a topic or that has a different type of moderation. Each subreddit has its own rules, and the moderator can kick you out if you don’t adhere to them. You start a topic, and the discussion on that topic is threaded; you can upvote or downvote a topic or one of the entries in a topic. Because the interface is threaded, there can be discussions in which an author answers questions about a book or a tech expert helps with problems. But Reddit is big, so expect to spend some time exploring before you find your communities.

Note that Reddit has been having its own issues recently. A sudden increase in its API pricing led to a protest by many of its users; despite that, a large number of its third-party apps are now going dark.

Bluesky

Bluesky has a fairly familiar look to it — not surprising since it was funded by Twitter.

Bluesky is no longer in invite mode, so anyone can now join — but whether it can overcome the word-of-mouth success of newer apps like Threads is yet to be seen. Like Mastodon, Bluesky has been developed to be a decentralized social network, and while new users are currently being steered toward a single iteration, you can select a different hosting provider if you want. The interface is very Twitter-like, which isn’t surprising since Bluesky was originally funded by Twitter itself. There are apps available for both iOS and Android.

Cohost

If you’re new to Cohost, you’re free to look around, but it may take a day or so to be able to post.

Cohost is a new social network that is still developing. Anyone can sign up, but you may have to wait a day or two before you can actually post (which, according to the FAQ, is a spam prevention measure); you can, however, look around. (It only took about 24 hours for me to be activated.)

As with Twitter, you follow the posts of other people; however, entries are always shown in the order they were posted rather than via any kind of algorithmic listing. Pages are specific to their users (although they can have more than one editor), and you can request to follow someone’s page (or someone can request to follow yours). In either case, the request must be approved. You can also search on (and bookmark) hashmarked tags if you’re looking for a specific topic.

CoHost Plus, which costs $5 a month or $50 a year, offers an expanded upload limit and upcoming customization features.

Tumblr

Tumblr is known more for its visuals than its text entries; however, users can discuss each post.

Tumblr — which launched in 2007 and has gone through its fair share of corporate owners — is more a series of blogs rather than a discussion social network per se. You can easily scroll through the latest entries of all the people you follow; click on the entry to see (and participate in) any discussions. Each entry is text, image, or video-based; followers can then discuss the entries via attached notes. You can also reblog (in other words, put the entry into your feed) or share the entry to other services.

A number of new features have been added over the past year, including livestreaming via Tumblr Live. Unlike the previous services, Tumblr does have advertising, although you can get rid of the ads for $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year.

Discord

Screenshot: Discord

Discord is more an invitational discussion service than a free-for-all social network.

Discord is more an invitational discussion service than a free-for-all social network. It is made up of separate servers that allow participants to participate in text discussions, video and voice calls, and exchange files; the interface can be heavily tweaked by the administrators depending on how they want to handle permissions, discussions, icons, etc. In other words, Discord can be a very useful tool, especially in the hands of someone who is reasonably tech-savvy.

When you download the Discord app (which is available for both desktops and mobile devices), you can list as many of the groups you belong to as you like on the left side of the screen. For example, if you’ve got a server from your company, a fan club, or a group of friends, you can easily click from one to the other.

Spill

Text over images gives Spill a more visual feel.

Spill is very much a work in progress. It has a waitlist (which you can join here), but if my experience is anything to go by, you won’t have to wait long. According to an article in AfroTech, the site has been built by two ex-Twitter employees to create a safe space for diverse communities. In order to do this, when you do join, you are asked for your name, phone number, birth date, email address, phone number, and zip code (not optional) as well as how you identify (optional). Entries have a 90-character limit, and you can add photos, videos, GIFs, and links; text overlaps the images, giving the interface a more visual feel. Currently, it is available via Mac and iOS apps only (the iOS app looks a lot better).

Post

Post concentrates on content from various news publications.

Another new service, Post concentrates on news content in an interesting fashion. The idea is that you can “discover, read, watch, discuss and share premium news content without subscriptions or ads.” Instead, if you want to read an article that’s normally behind a firewall, you can pay for that specific article.

Post works on a point system. You are given 50 points when you join, and you can use them to either read a paywalled article or to reward a creator whose post(s) you like. Each point is worth one cent and is kept in a virtual wallet; you purchase more for a small added fee (for example, purchasing 300 points costs $4.20). The cost of reading an article can vary widely: for example, a USA Today article costs 1 point, and a Reuters article costs 3 points, while articles from Fortune had price tags of 59 and 69 points. (Individual creators can also turn their posts into paid content.)

Meanwhile, the social networking angle consists of people either commenting on articles or adding links to articles (in those cases, it works the same way as other social networks, taking you out of Post and to the site where the link originates).

Substack Notes

Substack’s new Notes feature is a new place for writers to add shorter content.

One of the reasons that Musk may have gotten so peeved about Substack last April appears to be its introduction of Notes, a social networking add-on to its blogs and other content. Notes is, according to Substack, “a new space where you can publish short-form posts and share ideas with other writers and readers on Substack” — in short, a social network sitting alongside Substack’s longer content.

You access Notes via a tab on the Substack site; once there, you can start a note and add up to six images or GIFs to it. You can also like, comment on, “restack” (in other words, republish), or share other posts — basically, the same way you are able to like, comment on, and share Substack articles and blogs. You can use the @ sign to mention other Substack writers as well.

Spoutible

Spoutible’s interface will be easy for Twitter users to navigate.

Spoutible is one of the more Twitter-like of the new social networks. Aptly, it uses a whale / ocean metaphor throughout: you “spout” your opinion instead of posting it; you go to a section called Making Waves to see what topics are currently popular; and for the few seconds it takes to go from one section to another, you get an animation of a whale disappearing into the sea. Like Twitter, you have a profile page, you follow and are followed, and you have a timeline and can do one-to-one chats.

On Spoutible’s About Us page, it expresses its determination to take diversity and privacy seriously while mitigating harassment and other problems endemic to social networking. The network already had its first challenge in that area back in February when it ran into problems with some members of the romance community. On the other hand, the site is consistently making improvements to its interface and now has an Android and an iOS app. Spoutible is free (although it does ask for contributions) and available to try.

CounterSocial

CounterSocial’s Advanced Mode lets you view your feeds as a series of columns.

CounterSocial is the first social networking app I came across that also includes a VR aspect (which it calls Counter Realms). But if you want to keep to the basics, then this social network boasts on its front page that it doesn’t allow trolls, ads, or fake news — and has a long list of measures it takes to promote privacy and security, including identity breach alerts, real-time fake news awareness via FactLayer, and no third-party tracking. If you want, you can try out Alfred, CounterSocial’s GPT-3 AI feature. There are apps for both Android and iOS.

You have a choice of UIs: the Advanced Mode works via a series of columns rather than the traditional feed; if you’ve ever used Tweetdeck, you’ve got a fair idea of what it looks like. You can use each column to follow different hashtags or user lists. You can pin columns in their place or move them around the interface and arrange notifications for replies or new entries. The alternative Simplified Mode offers a single feed, more like Twitter or Facebook. There is also a chat link for support and conflict resolution. The social network is free; a Pro account costs $4.99 a month and includes additional security, access to other feeds such as traffic radio and news videos, and entry into Counter Realms.

WT.Social

WT.Social has a simple interface that somewhat resembles Facebook’s.

WT.Social is a fairly straightforward social network that advertises itself as “the non-toxic social network.” WT stands for “WikiTribune,” which was apparently a previous iteration of the site; it is hosted on GitHub. The interface is very Facebook-like, with a central feed; you can follow people (“friends”) or topics (“subwikis”), and if you don’t find a subwiki that deals with a topic you’re interested in, you can create your own. You can add images or videos to your posts.

Facebook

Yes, Facebook is still there, and some people still use it.

If you are looking for an alternative to Twitter, you probably don’t need to be told about Facebook, and if you’re not on Facebook, that’s likely intentional. But as my colleague Monica Chin mentions in her how-to on quitting Twitter, “There are a lot of horrible, terrible, no good, very bad things about Facebook. But if you miss the ability to keep up with family and friends on Twitter, you can do that on Facebook, too.” It is true that despite the algorithm-powered feeds, the frequent advertising, and the possible privacy violations, there are still a lot of people — often family members — who still use Facebook. And there it is.

Other alternatives

There are a number of other social networking resources out there, of course; we’ve only touched on a few here.

• While most of the networks listed above predominantly depend on the written word, there are some quite popular social networks that use video as their main means of communication, such as TikTok (although, as noted above, TikTok now has a text option) and BeReal. If you’re comfortable with using video — or even prefer it to text-based social networking — those are a couple of places to go.
• There are, of course, other networks that focus on specific needs or communities. For example, LinkedIn is geared toward business and job hunts (and thinkfluencing, of course), while DeviantArt is a place for the visual arts community.
• And, of course, there is the traditional blog — which is still a way to communicate with friends, family, and (if you’re a creative) fans. Which blogging service and / or software you use depends on what you want to do, who you want to show it to, and how comfortable you are with the technology.

The point is — no social network is forever (such as the late lamented Compuserve, the pre-MySpace Friendster, and the yes-it-is-still-there-sort-of AOL). Twitter has definitely had a strong influence on community discourse over the last few years; we’ll have to see whether it will retain that influence under this new chapter and, if not, what will replace it.

Update July 25th, 2023, 9:38AM ET: This article was originally published on November 1st, 2022; since then, Substack Notes, Post, Spoutible, Bluesky, Threads, Spill, and TikTok have been added, and some of the other entries have been updated.