SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERIENCES: UPDATE

After engaging in historical studies on ‘happy’ topics like anarchism, revolution, and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, my brain needs a break. There is only so much reading and research that you can do before your brain starts telling you, “Hey asshole, can you give me a break?”
Last month, I posted an update on five social media applications and websites that are alternatives to the Facebook empire. As the tech industry has exploded profit wise, the importance of growing alternate voices outside of these increasingly gigantic monopolistic companies (Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft) is becoming an urgent matter. So where do these now seven social media websites stand after a month of usage?

Let me start with the negative reviews.

LIBERTY SOCIETY – This was a horrible disappointment. Being cast as a website that promotes ideals of freedom, anarchism and libertarianism, the community is virtually non-existent. Once a day, I would get an update telling me about a podcast I needed to listen to. That was about all that ever happened here. The website looks like it was made in the early 90s. It was unfortunate because this is an interesting niche that could lead to a massive number of followers. I decided to terminate my account a few weeks after I started it.

SPREELY – This was promoted as a social media site that would fix the problems that revolve around Facebook, namely the censorship and account banning that the platform is becoming known. Again, the website design is wonderful. It makes you feel like an active community has created a vibrant website for sharing information and news. Unfortunately, I barely saw any activity on this website. The website has an additional problem where only a few voices seem to dominate the platform. I decided to terminate my account on this after just a week.

GAB – I want to love this site. I really do. But the anger caused by the censorship tactics of Twitter, Facebook, Google, and the rest of these massive conglomerates mixed with the toxic personalities on this website that likely ended up here because of that behavior makes Gab difficult to navigate. Like you are seeing in the streets of the Pacific Northwest, there is a lot of anger out there. If you want to see the right-wing side of it, just use this website for a few days.

There was one site I mentioned that has not been reviewed yet.

MINDS – I hope to get to this soon. Due to my incredibly busy schedule, it is difficult to shuffle multiple social media websites. I probably align more with this from a moral perspective than any other. The prospect of getting paid in crypto for submitting my work is appealing. There just isn’t enough time in the day to work 40 hours a week, home school your 9 year old, go for your Master’s Degree, maintain a blog, and try to catch up on the television show Yellowstone while living your life online. I will update this blog when my MINDS profile is created.

Now, the posts on the positive sides of the alternative social media platforms

SLOWLY – This one came back to me recently. Due to an internal server error at the company, my account got deleted back in 2018. If you are interested in writing and meeting anonymized pen pals from around the world, this website is quite appealing. I heard they recently created a monthly subscription plan. If I begin using this website again, I hope that their servers are stabilized. If my profile becomes active, I will post it here via an update.

PARLER – This has become the right-wing social media website like Gab. They will censor certain behaviors like their more well-known brethren. Despite this, I have gotten more readership from this social media site than any other. There are some interesting news outlets that post on my feed like Zerohedge.com. The website is overwhelmingly right wing. As a person who reads literature from every side of the political spectrum, I do find a lot of interesting news in my feed every day. Because of this, Parler does get a thumbs up from me. If they just eliminated the censorship (Since many left wingers come onto this website to troll), this website could become a true defender of free speech as much of the information posted here does hold up on the factual end. Be confident that you can defend your point of view and don’t resort to censorship like Twitter.

MEWE – I love this site. Mainly for two reasons. First, I can confirm that they do not track you with third party cookies, fingerprints and referrers as you go across the internet. I tested MeWe on Linux, Windows 10 and my Android phone and it passed with flying colors. Second, the design of this website reminds me of my affinity for MySpace. Everything is broken down into groups. You can communicate via chat or text through these groups. Your friends will post information related to the conversation you are having. It is a wonderful website that respects your interests but still allows you to dive into new topics and experiences. I am currently a member of 12 groups all related to things that interest me. The website is more politically neutral. The only issue I have seen is that porn and advertising spam sometimes infiltrates the groups. Thankfully, the administrator can drop the hammer and control that content very easily. MeWe is better than Facebook in my opinion.
There you go. Enjoy this update. Until next time!