As chaos grips Twitter under the new ownership of Elon Musk, many users are looking for alternatives for the microblogging site. In recent days, alternative social apps and microblogging platforms like Koo, Mastodon, Tribel, and others have gained popularity. For those unaware, since Twitter’s $44-billion takeover by the Tesla and SpaceX CEO in October this year, several measures were taken to improve the company’s health. Amid widespread criticism, Musk has made several announcements following the buyout. He fired half of Twitter’s 7,500 workforce including the company’s top officials, announced new rules on safety, authenticity, and privacy, and introduced a revamped Blue subscriptions service that plans to charge $7.99 a month for Twitter verification and a blue tick. These changes came with the withdrawal of ads from many prominent brands as well.
The new Twitter Blue subscription plan saw a wave of fake 'verified' accounts on the platform. Although the company is continuously updating its policies, many users have expressed concerns over what happens on the platform, with some users already departing.
If you are also planning to leave Twitter, here are 10 alternatives you can choose from.
Mastodon
Founded in 2016, Mastodon is a decentralised, open-source platform with thousands of servers running across the world. It was developed by German software developer Eugen Rochko. It has a number of features that are comparable to those of Twitter. It has a 500-character limit on posts, no advertisements, and personalised emojis. Rochko said that since October 27, the platform has seen more than a million active users on a monthly basis and has gained nearly 500,000 users.
ALSO READ: Twitter Loses Thousands Of Users To Mastodon After Musk Takeover: How To Sign Up
Koo
For those looking for an Indian alternative, Koo is a Twitter-like platform that is available on all platforms. Founded in 2021, Koo has already crossed 5 crore downloads. On this platform, a user can try out many regional languages to express their views, making it more fun and dedicated to an Indian audience. Government institutions and some Indian celebrities are also using this on the platform.
Tumblr
Launched in 2007, Tumblr is also a popular Twitter alternative. This is a blogging platform, unlike Twitter which is a micro-blogging site due to the character limit. Tumblr gives the option to post content along with images, videos, GIFs, and much more. Users can also like your content, comment on your content, and even share it on their feeds. Tumblr also provides you with an opportunity to chat with others using its direct message feature, just like other social media platforms.
Cohost
Launched in February, Cohost is currently only available on Desktop. This ad-free platform does not have any character limit as of now. The company is soon planning to roll out a subscription-based plan in order to grow the business. Posts called “coposts” or “Chosts”, appear chronologically on the feed, and users can create their own pages and collaborate on pages with others.
Tribel
Owned by US Democratic political activists and headed by Omar Rivero, and Rafael Rivero, Tribel is another social media platform that has a user interface much like Facebook. The platform lets you control your feed, users can also select their own target audience. To generate more engagement and find more people with a similar mindset for discussions platform’s algorithm helps users. Tribel has dubbed itself as the “kinder, smarter social network” as a selling point to lure users from Twitter.
Plurk
Plurk is an Asian conversation-based micro-blogging site based out of Taiwan. Plurk has a massive international user base, especially in Asia. Most of the discussions on the platform are centered around Asian pop culture. Plurk also allows anonymous posts. A useful Time Machine feature lets you see all of the 'plurks' from days past, making it easy to search for old posts. The platform allows users to send messages of 360 characters.
Aether
Aether, a peer-to-peer social network launched in 2018, functions more like a blogging platform. People can make their own communities, making micro social media networks for a specific topic on the platform. One of the significant benefits of Aether is that the comments you make don't last forever. It vanishes after six months if not saved, making Aether perfect for people who value their privacy. You can only use the Aether if you download the desktop version.
Gettr
Gettr was founded by Jason Miller, a former Donald Trump aide, and was officially launched on July 4, 2021. According to its founders, Gettr is “a brand new social media platform founded on the principles of free speech, independent thought and rejecting political censorship and the 'cancel culture'. The platform offers similar features to Twitter. The app is available on Android and iOS platforms. Signing up and getting started is much easier with multiple sign-in options.
Mind
Mind was founded in 2011 by Bill Ottman and John Ottman as an alternative to social networks. With the lack of an algorithm and censorship, Mind stands outs as an “open source social network dedicated to Internet freedom.” However, the site uses cryptocurrency. It pays users in MINDS Tokens for creating popular content on the Platform. Users can spend these tokens to buy account promotions on Mind.
Launched in 2005, Reddit has been around since before Twitter. Reddit has content on a vast amount of topics. There are subreddits like r/apple, r/android, r/technology, and many more. Users are free to open their own subreddits. Each subreddit has user-generated posts, which are moderated by moderators. Reddit is available on the Web, Android, and iOS platforms.