Getting tired of social media platforms that censor points of views they disagree with? Ready to find better options that don’t censor you, steal or sell your data, or try to influence what information you’re allowed to see?
Having researched most of the social media platforms out there from the standard and most popular to the less known but that aren’t hostile to points of view that don’t align with the main stream media, I think most would agree that the ones to consider for your migration are mentioned below.
Search engines, like social media, have been weaponized by Big Tech and people should look at alternatives. However, the only viable alternative at the moment is DuckDuckGo. While others exist and may be created in the future, it will take time for them to be competitive and useful due to the amount of data that must be indexed to make a search engine effective.
Here are some of the best social media alternatives to consider if you haven’t already. I’ll be adding links to our tutorials to help you make a smooth transition.
Traditional Social Media & Alternatives
MeWe – Privacy & Free Speech focused alternative to Facebook. MeWe is fast becoming the social platform of choice to replace Facebook for many conservatives that are fed up with censorship, manipulation and lack of security on the majority of Big Tech platforms. This platform has been around for a few years now, it became popular with many people looking for an alternative to Google Plus and has been the beneficiary of conservative migration away from Facebook.
MeWe has most of the Facebook features that are commonly used from Posting, Comments, Likes, Shares, Groups, Stories, Business pages, messaging, and more. MeWe has no ads and offers a very low priced subscription to gain more features that might be of interest to businesses or heavy users.
<link to tutorials>
USA.life – Conservative Family Focused Business friendly alternative to Facebook. Probably the most feature equivalent option to Facebook with a similar look and feel. It also has some political posts but a healthy mix of content that folks tired of politics might enjoy for communicating with friends and family and like minded folks. It has messaging, Business Pages, and Groups as well as some forms of business advertising. <link to tutorials>
Gab – One of the earliest Free Speech focused social platforms that has gone from seemingly Wild West to a more organized and seemly more civil social platform for uncensored speech. Gab is leading the way in Alt-Tech, offering an alternative to to traditional technologies that have been controlled by Big Tech for years Gab has created a parallel economy with many alternatives to Big Tech payment and shopping platforms and there’s much more to come.
Gab started their platform with “Twitter” style functionality but has matured into a full featured social platform that covers all types of use cases that rivals the core competencies of Facebook YouTube, and others, while offering uncensored Free Speech that would be unavailable on platforms with an agenda. Even Gettr, Truth, Parler, and other conservative platforms have some limits on free speech that Gab would allow. Gab doesn’t tolerate violence or indecent content but doesn’t limit the expression of unpopular facts or opinions.
There are some caveats to be aware of with Gab in that they are being painted as promoting extremism due to the folks that are pushing what is labeled at White Nationalism. Groypers are the group of folks that seem to be on the fringe in their beliefs and interpretation of Biblical Truths and they promote positions that most would interpret as racist or antisemitic to the point that most on the right would disagree with them. They will appear to hold many other views that most conservatives would align with so be careful and aware of those your connect with.
Overall, the platform is solid from a technology standpoint, can’t be deplatformed, since they are one of the few that have already faced it, overcame the obstacles, and now own their infrastructure, and Gab as a whole, is very focused on Constitutional Conservatism.
Gab makes it very easy to advertise and reach an audience of folks that are more aligned with American Patriots than any other.
<link to tutorials>
Truth – The much awaited Free Speech platform created by Trump and his allies. This platform is based on an battle tested open source platform called Mastadon. While growing fast, it was off to a slow start and it’s difficult to see if Truth will outperform Gettr in the Free Speech space. Trump followers will most certainly want to use both Gettr and Truth until a clear winner emerges although it’s not likely to become clear until the 2024 election season.
Gettr – A conservative, Free Speech focused twitter clone that has swooped in and take over the popularity of the Parler users, albeit in much lower numbers, it’s run by Jason Miller, a former Trump administration member with a Chinese investor that has been seen as a negative to many and possible reason that Gettr has not reached the user rate of Parler in it’s peak. Gettr is still growing and adding new features but it’s unclear how long conservatives will split their loyalty across multiple similar apps that serve the same audience or which platform will ultimately earn the top spot.
Parler – The first conservative leaning and free speech oriented uncensored alternative to Twitter. Many popular conservative personalities building a following on Parler by mid 2020. Parler’s growth was exceptionally fast until it was crushed by Big Tech as during the 2020 election cycle. Parler has never recovered from being deplatformed by the app stores and AWS (Amazon Web Services).
Parler and other “Twitter” style socials will not be a suitable replacement for personal for business focused Facebook users. Parler and now faster growing alternatives are hyper focused on the news cycle and political info.
The popularity of some of these newer platforms may influence future updates to included features that resemble Facebook but most have a long way to go for any sort of feature parity and I’d expect more Twitter style features that improve managing lists and followers before they venture into the Facebook realm. <link to tutorials>
CloutHub – Another Free Speech Political focused app that attracted some popular conservatives as Parler was derailed by Big Tech. CloutHub still gets very little engagement and is probably never going to grow as fast as Gettr or Truth. It’s actually a very decent and full featured platform but it’s just not getting the attention that others are.
Sovren – Yet another Free Speech platform that seems to be a solid platform but you have to wonder how many people are going to be able to engage on so many similar platforms.
Video Focused
Rumble – Video focused alternative to YouTube. Very nicely done with competitive features, monetization for business folks, and no censorship on conservatives speech. Many content types are posted and available from dog and cat videos to politics and news. Conservatives that are moving to Parler are also moving here to avoid censorship of YouTube and to follow conservative public figures that have been silenced on other platforms. <link to tutorials>
Odysee – Uncensored video alternative that has monetization for creators.
BitChute – Uncensored video alternative to YouTube. Not as polished as Rumble and not the same feel that many moderate or conservative folks would expect. Doesn’t appear to have monetization features for business folks. (There are a couple other alternatives focused on 2nd Amendment but I think that many will migrate to Rumble or consolidate to one of the others, yet unknown)
Business Focused
Google Business Profile (GBP) FKA Google My Business (GMB) – Business Focused info and posting, also important for business reviews. Very critical site to improve local SEO for brick and mortar business locations. Can also help local businesses that are service based without a public location. Regular posting, profile accuracy, and good reviews can enable a business to get in the top 3 slots known to many as the 3-pack which is known to drive the most free organic traffic to a local business.
<link to tutorials>
Facebook Business Pages – Still the #1 social site for businesses and advertisers. Avoid for personal or political posts if your business depends on not getting punished by the platform or if you manage business pages for others. <link to tutorials>
Instagram – Becoming the most popular social channel for images and video for individuals and business. Owned by Facebook but the nature of the platform has kept it out of the news on censorship issues so far. <link to tutorials>
YouTube – Google owned, largest video site. Too much content to ignore and too much traffic to ignore for digital marketers and content creators unless you run afoul of their fact checkers and censorship, then you’ll be punished. If you produce content that doesn’t draw the attention of censors, this site can be profitable both as a content creator and advertiser.
Linkedin – Still the largest Business and Professional Social Network. Now owned by Microsoft, it’s starting to add additional content that’s less business focused so it’s best for those growing a business or that want to have a place to post their online resume to be seen by potential employers or those seeking and offering professional career opportunities. B2B selling has been a growing trend although abuse of the platform has reduced it’s effectiveness for some.
<link to tutorials>
Alignable – Local Business focus for real business people and those that are focused on business to business networking. (Seems to have less MLM folks and more brick and mortar type businesses and those that provide services to them.
Referral Key – Another business referral social platform for business folks and professionals but seems more direct sales and MLM focused.
Meetum – Conservative Business focused social platform. Somewhat work from home business focused but has the potential to grow a following for your business or group. Platform lost momentum in the last couple years but backed by a very large group called Faith Driven Economics. This platform has attracted a large work from home and MLM audience but could be a great platform for all business types if there was a focus on that. Randy Schrum is the platform owner and seems to be more focused on monetizing his business interests than growing a social site. He’s been focused on growing an army of Melaluca and Crypto followers over the last few years.
Messaging
Sending Text, Audio, & Video Messages to Friends, Colleagues, and Groups
Most of the messaging apps require access to your personal info or mobile phone number. Therefore, it’s recommended to only use the platforms that require the use of your personal data with people that you already know and trust with your contact info. Most platforms can encrypt the messages but that doesn’t protect the anonymity of the contact list.
WhatsApp – Now owned by Facebook, it’s still a decent messenger platform and used by many for international communication but only use if you needed for business.
Skype – Owned by Microsoft and used by many for chat as well as video messaging and VoIP calls. Has really gone downhill since Microsoft took over.
Telegram – My preferred app for sending messages. Safe and secure and capable of text, video, and voice communication, groups, and news feeds. You can send voice or video messages and even make live video or audio calls just like the top messaging platforms. Telegram does it all.
Signal –
Marco Polo – Video Walkie Talkie – Great for keeping in touch with loved ones and friends. Could be used for business too. Send video chat messages to one or more friends. From real time to send and get responses later. Super easy to use. Highly recommended and doesn’t really have a political angle to consider or to be concerned with at this point.
Social Platforms to Avoid
TikTok – Chinese Spyware – Avoid
Search Engines
Google – Obviously the largest search engine provider and one of the largest tech companies on the planet. Important for business and a formidable force in controlling the flow of information and steering public opinion.
Bing/Yahoo – Bing is now the dominant technology over yahoo since Microsoft made a huge investment. Still much less market share than Google search, still big tech, but also still an important search player to consider for business strategy.
DuckDuckGo – Growing in popularity, this browser doesn’t track you. While it doesn’t have the market share of Google or Bing, it’s a distant 3rd in popularity and others just get started are way behind. While not yet a business advertising platform, personal search and privacy focus make this a good choice for non-business focused users.
This search engine has been discovered to be manipulating search results in the same way the other Big Tech platforms are known for.
StartPage – a privacy focused search engine that uses Google and Bing results without tracking you. You get the results without giving up your privacy. Remember that privacy doesn’t mean that you are not being manipulated since the Big Tech Searches are curated by folks with an agenda that work hard to ensure that information they disagree with is ranked lower in results.
Brave Search –
1776 – Browser by Andrew of USA,life – Conservative owned search engine with no tracking and no steering or intentionally misdirecting you. 1776 is still in development and it’s unknown if or when it will be released.
Web Browsers
Chromium – The open source code base for Google Chrome and many other browsers including the next 3 (Vivalidi, Brave, Dissenter, Edge, and Opera). Chromium based browsers are the most popular and most likely to work with current web sites and web based technologies.
Google Chrome – Chromium based but controlled by google. The most popular and online software compatible browser technology.
Vivaldi – Chromium based and secure. The Vivalid development team created the original Opera browser before selling it and starting this project. It’s very well built, user friendly, and especially nice for those of us that use many tabs. It also has many enhancements that far exceed the other Chromium based browsers and it supports Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android with full support for PWA technology on mobile.
Vivaldi has been my primary browser for a number of years now and I’ve made it the default on every device I can use it on.
Brave – One of the more secure browsers available. Built on top of Chromium. Brave is a woke company and also known for allowing some advertisers to track and target users if default settings are used.
Edge – Microsoft developed this to replace Internet Explorer. When it failed to get traction, they rebuilt it on top of Chromium like many others have done. (Edge uses the Bing search engine by default) Edge is only popular because it’s the default browser on Microsoft Windows.
Dissenter – Created by the Gab development team and built as a customized version of Brave/Chromium. It’s very secure and only runs on a computer. No mobile version is available. Dissenter has disabled the undesirable parts of Brave and added the ability to make public comments on public websites that can be seen by other Dissenter users, much to the dismay of ‘woke’ website owners.
This browser works quite well but it might be best for activist or tech type folks that plan to use for the “dissenter” functionality. It’s unknown to be a risk but could become a target by woke companies to detect from their websites and target it’s users. Therefore, it might be best used by folks with discipline to use it cautiously and where it’s added feature set may provide a specific benefit over another browser.
Opera – one of the older browsers known for speed, now built on top of Chromium but recently purchased by a Chinese company making it less desirable and a potential risk.
Firefox – Mozilla based browser that replaced Netscape – still open source and one of the few good browsers left that isn’t based on Chromium and trusted by many. Mozilla also makes the Thunderbird Email client. Firefox is more secure than many others and is a good backup browser to use when a Chromium based browser has problems. Firefox may not always be compatible with sites that don’t follow modern standards.
Safari – Apple’s browser – The least standards based and prone to issues with many websites. Often unsupported for cloud based apps. It’s the core browser on iOS and MacOS and even iPhones or iPads with 3rd party browsers are forced to use Safari’s core code base and are negatively affected by those compatibility issues and limitations, the most notable being the Push Notification limitations on iPhone based PWAs.
Summary
To summarize my favorites, I would have to say that for me and probably most other conservatives, they would probably do well to focus on MeWe, Gettr or Truth, Rumble, and Telegram for personal use and for some business use. For folks that prefer no moderation at all, Gab is a very solid platform with active engagement and a lot of innovation on many areas of the new parallel economy.
Add others if you find them useful but many may not want or need the complexity of so many platforms. You may also need to consider keeping your personal use and business use separate by refraining from making posts that at risk of censorship on platforms you rely on for business.
For business professionals, it’s important to consider your business goals and plan on keeping your Facebook account and business pages a while longer. GMB, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn are likely going to be important for businesses for a while.
As far as messaging, I personally use FB Messenger primarily for business on my business pages, as well as What’s App, Telegram, & Skype. Folks without international communication may be able to stick with just FB messenger for business and try to transition to Telegram for everything else but it’s also great for business and many outside the US use it for business.
In future articles I’ll be covering ways to get the most out of these new platforms for business and personal use.
Let me know if I missed any good ones that should be included and if you have any favorites or insights that would be useful to share.