Twitter is in a bad way. If having most of its workforce cut by the new ‘chief twit’ Elon Musk wasn’t enough, it’s now been publicly snubbed by the controversial and previously banned Donald Trump.
The former US president said on Saturday that he had no interest in returning to Twitter. It comes after a slim majority of Twitter users voted in favour of reinstating him on the platform, following his ban back in 2021 for inciting the Capitol Hill riots. They voted in a poll created by Musk.
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“The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated,” Musk tweeted.
Trump, however, stated he didn’t see “any reason” for returning to the blue bird.
The former president instead backed his own platform, Truth Social, claiming it had better user engagement than Musk’s Twitter.
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By GlobalDataIt’s another blow to the social platform and Musk’s fledgling reputation, as advertisers distance themselves and his own mass-layoffs have made people pessimistic about the platform’s future survival.
Although, Musk himself doesn’t seem too concerned. Following the snub from defenestrated commander in-chief, the chief twit posted a picture of a praying monk and a bare-bottomed woman. A Twitter logo had been superimposed on the woman’s buttocks and the monk had the text “Donald Trump” written on it. Musk accompanied the tweet with the words “lead us not into temptation”.
Nevertheless, longtime users are also publicly looking for Twitter alternatives. So why don’t we show you what’s out there?
Mastodon
Mastadon seems to be the most common alternative to those fleeing Twitter at the moment. The platform has been appearing in countless tweets, most of which seem to be praising it as the next best thing below the blue bird.
Mastodon describes itself as a “radically different social media, back in the hands of people.” Its selling point is the fact it has no ads and no algorithm, claiming to provide “you with a unique possibility of managing your audience without middlemen.”
Much like Reddit’s communities – Mastodon allows users to host and create communities, known as “instances.” The host can set the rules and policies in each instance – allowing users to choose where they’d like to spend their time.
Stephen Fry, Greta Thunberg and James Gunn are just a few of the celebrities who have been posting regularly on the platform.
Tumblr
The oldest platform on this list, the 15-year-old microblogging site has started to be spoken about as a potential Twitter alternative. It rose to fame in the early 2010s with a niche user base mostly made up of creatives and fandoms.
Tumblr has seen its fair share of owners and rebrands – but a consistent user base who swear by its ability to connect people over shared interests has kept the site thriving well over a decade.
Although the site is much less influencer stacked than many other social media sites, 48% of active users and 61% of new users are from Gen Z, according to Jeff D’Onofrio, Tumblr CEO.
Plurk
Launched back in 2008, Plurk is a micro-blogging and social media platform that works very similarly to Twitter. Users are able to update their network with 210 text character written updates called “plurks”.
It was described by CNET as a “Twitter clone” which offers “a slick timeline view of all the posts from your friends.”
Similar to Reddit, users are rated with a “karma score” which reflects the amount of sharing and discussions they’re involved in. Those with a higher score unlock more emotes to use which is a staple of the site.
It describes itself as “a really snazzy site that allows you to showcase the events that make up your life in deliciously digestible chunks.”
Post
Post, a newly created social media platform attempting to become a successful Twitter alternative, is the love child of former Waze CEO Noam Bardin. He claims he has created a “civil place to debate ideas; learn from experts, journalists, individual creators, and each other; converse freely; and have fun.”
A key difference to Twitter is that “posts of any length” is supported on the platform – taking a completely different direction to the short bursts of info that Twitter is known for.
According to Bardin, while the site “will oppose any government’s attempt to censor speech on our platform” there will still be “rules, which we plan to rigorously enforce via content moderation, with the help of our community.”
Post is currently in closed Beta with a waiting list of thousands of users ready to try it out.
Although it may be a long way off yet, as Bardin has been vocal about the “super early” stage the platform is currently in.
CounterSocial
Launched in 2017, CountersSocial sells itself as the first social media platform to take an active and zero-tolerance stance against trolls, ads, fake news and “foreign influence ops”.
Claiming to have over 63 million followers, the platform has a range of built in security features that alerts its users to deepfake content, identity theft, bias news and more.
Tech Briefly described the site as “futuristic” in design and with “features that are quite comparable to those on the Twitter platform.”
Much like Mastadon, the platform has been hailed as a decent Twitter alternative with many users jumping over.
Amino
Another platform which is pushing the “build your own community” route, Amino allows its users to decorate their profiles with a logo, theme, background images and more.
“The app’s purpose is to bring people together based on their interests,” Bark reported.
As well as offering a range of customisable features, the platform advertises itself as being a “safe social space for teens” and houses “strictly enforced community guidelines.”
The app was originally developed by Narvii back in 2012 and launched as an app officially in 2016, before being bought by MediaLab in 2021.
In June 2018, it was reported that a whopping 2.5 million communities had been created on Amino.
The app allows users to chat with other members of their community through text, voice and screening room (a voice chat system that allows users to watch videos together).
Parler
Parler has built up a reputation of being a popular social media platform for the far right – and now has become another candidate for a possible Twitter alternative.
Parler claims it has built its social media platform “the way it was intended” and says it is sat on a “foundation of respect for privacy and personal data, free speech, free markets, and ethical, transparent corporate policy.”
Founded in 2018, the app has increased in popularity and has been praised by users as being an “unbiased social media.”
In design, it shares similarities with Twitter and Instagram, housing a familiar follower count system, post and link sharing and main feed.
The platform was banned from both the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store after claims to have helped incite violence at the Capitol Hill riots.
It has since been reinstated, however, with a reported 20 million registered users on the platform in 2022.
Discord
Discord is another popular social media service which has been in conversations about becoming a good Twitter alternative. Users are able to browse custom made “servers” which are usually framed around certain interests, communities or social networks.
It was primarily used by gamers when it was released in 2015, but has since grown its user base considerably to a wide range of communities. Discord reported having over 350 million registered users with around 150 million active users monthly in 2021.
Discord users are able to share images, GIFs and text messages – as well as communicate through a dedicated voice and video chat feature.
Some users on Twitter have been vocal about their love for Discord, but claim the platform is too much like a “chat room” to be a true alternative to Twitter.
Reddit is unapologetically retro. It’s a site that has retained a dedicated user base for years by being deceptively simple. It’s design is based off classic online message boards – making it a different beast to the slickness of Twitter’s feed – but the actual usage remains similar.
The social media platform is divided into separate communities, known as subreddits, where anyone can join to post within the specific guidelines of that community. There are thousands to choose from; everything from Star Wars Film Bloopers and football to politics and religion.
Unlike Twitter, the moderation on the platform is handled by the moderators of each community – which are made up of volunteer users of the platform.
It’s a vast and quite overwhelming platform, but is sworn by its users as the best social media platform on the internet.
In terms of being a Twitter alternative, it’s not the most favourable in online discourse right now, although this could be down to the gatekeeping of Reddit by it’s die-hard fans.
Cohost
Cohost is not trying to be anything other than a Twitter alternative. At the time of writing, the social media platform is still in its beta phase.
Just like Twitter, users are able to follow the posts of other people. The difference to the blue bird, however, is that posts are shown only in order of when they were posted – instead of a specific algorithm catered to the individual.
All requests to follow people must be accepted by that person too, so all followers are those who you want following you.
Again, just like Twitter, users can search certain topics and posts through hashtags.
GlobalData is the parent company of Verdict and its sister publications.
