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Twitter has been engulfed in chaos since billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the helm, cutting the company’s workforce in half, upending the platform’s verification system, reinstating previously banned accounts — including those of white nationalists — and suspending journalists who’ve been covering him.
While it’s not clear if the drama is causing many users to leave — in fact, having a front-row seat to the chaos may prove entertaining to some — lesser-known sites Mastodon and even Tumblr are emerging as new (or renewed) alternatives. Here’s a look at some of them.
(Oh, and if you are leaving Twitter and want to preserve your tweet history, you can download it by going to your profile settings and clicking on “your account” then “download an archive of your data.»)
MASTODON
Sharing a name with an extinct mammal resembling an elephant, Mastodon has emerged as a front-runner among those curious about life beyond the blue bird. It shares some similarities with Twitter, but there are some big differences — and not just that its version of tweets are officially called “toots.”
Mastodon is a decentralized social network. That means it’s not owned by a single company or billionaire. Rather, it’s made up of a network of servers, each run independently but able to connect so people on different servers can communicate. There are no ads as Mastodon is funded by donations, grants and other means.
Mastodon’s feed is chronological, unlike Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or Twitter, which all use algorithms to get people to spend as much time on a site as possible.
It can be a tad daunting to try to sign up to Mastodon. Because each server is run separately, you will need to first pick one you want to join, then go through the steps to create an account and agree with the server’s rules. There are general and interest- and location-based ones, but in the end it won’t really matter. Once you’re in, the feed is reminiscent of Twitter. You can write (up to 500 characters), post photos or videos, and follow accounts as well as see a general public feed.
“We present a vision of social media that cannot be bought and owned by any billionaire, and strive to create a more resilient global platform without profit incentives,” Mastodon’s website says.
