Codias: The Social Network for Conservatives -- This site seems more like a way to organize for political action and less of a way to share interesting pics and stories with friends. It's still in beta testing, but I signed up just to check it out. Apparently a week or so ago you had to swear an oath to join, but I didn't have to today.
Gab.ai: The People First Social Network -- A Twitter replacement? It apparently focuses on allowing users to control what they see rather than stopping people from posting offensive material. Emma Grey Ellis at Wired seems to think it's already alt-right dominated.
MeWe looks like a possible replacement for facebook. Its advertising focuses on privacy:
We are social creatures by nature and private people by right. That’s why MeWe offers the power of self-expression delivered under the umbrella of safety.
At MeWe, you can enjoy amazing online experiences that give you the freedom and safety to be and share the real you.
As individuals, our creativity and innermost thoughts require privacy. It’s how we change ourselves and the world. That’s why we believe that everyone should have the right to be their uncensored self online, without worrying about who can watch and where our information goes.I like their Privacy Bill of Rights (click the pop-up link on their main page):
- You own your personal information & content. It is explicitly not ours.
- You will never receive a targeted advertisement or 3rd party content based on what you do or say online. We think that's creepy.
- You see every post in timeline order from your friends, family & groups. We do not manipulate, filter, or change the order of your content or what you see.
- Permissions & privacy are your rights. You control them.
- You control who can access your content.
- You control what, if anything, others can see in member searches.
- We're a private network. That means we do not track or profile you.
- Your privacy means we do not share your personal information with anyone.
- Your emojis are for you and your friends. We do not monitor or mine your data.
- Your face is your business. We do not use facial recognition technology.
- You have the right to delete your account and take your content with you at any time.
Diaspora looks interesting as well. This is the first social network site (that I've seen, anyway) where they let you choose where your data is stored, so you could opt for a country that has stronger privacy laws. They also explicitly allow pseudonyms, and they provide integration for cross-posting to facebook, Twitter, etc.
Are there others you would recommend checking out?
8 comments:
This is a good post. I don't have anything to add, however, as I haven't thought much about the problem.
I rarely use Facebook. I strongly favor Google+
You know, that oath isn't half bad.
I don't use fb , and don't know about any of the alternatives listed.
As I see it, the problem with most is there is no sub-selection process-
baldly stated, any fool can join with no effort. Let me explain. Yesterday I took a ride and ended up a dirt road in the mountains. A trail led to a wonderful viewpoint. Once there, I sat for an hour or so and had conversations with the folks walking in for a view. A father and son, both alert and smart. Young lovers, happy with the world. Retired people, also pleasant and engaged. They all wanted to be there, wanted to see a nice view, and had driven a bumpy dusty road and walked a short trail to get there. That small effort subtracted out the jerks.
By the way, IMO, the end goal of the social media sites is total data profiling on every individual on earth, or at least those with a web access. The great limiting factor in the past was data storage, but that is apparently no longer a problem.
That small effort subtracted out the jerks.
This is also why cold-weather backpacking is so nice -- you may well have a giant section of wilderness completely to yourself, because the pain of the cold keeps people away.
"This is also why cold-weather backpacking is so nice -- you may well have a giant section of wilderness completely to yourself, because the pain of the cold keeps people away. "
And also the mosquitos! One reason Alaska is so nice in late summer.
Dale, why do you like Google+?
I am avoiding anything that gives more of my data to the big data miners, but I'm curious.
raven: By the way, IMO, the end goal of the social media sites is total data profiling on every individual on earth ...
Yeah, I'm hoping that data dispersal helps avoid that a bit. If we can develop a suite of unrelated services we can use, I think that might be useful.
E.g., DuckDuckGo is a search engine that doesn't collect your search data. Now, it's results aren't quite as good, either, but that's the trade off. Add in an independent social media platform, a separate email provider, and a different blogging platform yet, and your data is dispersed away from one big data mining giant that can do it all and that is willing to share with other giants to get even more of your data.
I don't know what the aggregate effect would be; maybe nothing. Maybe it's all so interconnected that such efforts are futile. But, what I've read suggests it can have some effect, although the magnitude isn't clear.
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