MINNEAPOLIS — Within hours of Elon Musk's announcement of sweeping changes to Twitter's workplace environment leading to a mass exodus, the phrases "#RIPTwitter" and "#GoodbyeTwitter" began trending on the platform. A few days later, one of Twitter's very own competitors, Hive Social, began trending on the platform.
Here's a quick look at Hive and a few other options people are looking to in the wake of Twitter's changing landscape.
Founded in 2019, Hive Social - also known simply as Hive (not to be confused with workplace organization app Hive... it can get confusing, we know) is a platform that allows users to share photos, GIFs, polls, and status updates, much like Twitter. However, Hive Social's feed defaults to showing users posts of their friends in chronological order, unlike Twitter.
You can customize your profile with music and a color scheme. When you first enter the app, it prompts you to choose from a selection of interests to curate content for you. It is currently available in the Apple App Store, and it is in a beta test phase for Android users. The website says they "expect an Android release to hit the Google Play Store in 2022."
Mastodon also shows users a chronological feed. Similar to Twitter, you can pin posts to the top of your profile. But unlike Twitter, there's no feature that's similar to quote tweeting, so your posts won't be subject to editorializing.
Mastodon's site boasts an easy way to filter out content you don't want to see, by either keyword/phrase, or server. Mastodon is decentralized, meaning each person's site can operate alone. Here's how Mastodon's home site explains it:
"A Mastodon website can operate alone. Just like a traditional website, people sign up on it, post messages, upload pictures and talk to each other. Unlike a traditional website, Mastodon websites can interoperate, letting their users communicate with each other; just like you can send an email from your Gmail account to someone from Outlook, Fastmail, Protonmail, or any other email provider, as long as you know their email address, you can mention or message anyone on any website using their address."
Counter Social puts out an against-the-grain image. A cracked egg in its logo loosely references one of the original Twitter default avatars. Counter Social bills itself as having "No trolls, no abuse, no ads, no fake news," and "No foreign influences ops."
You can get Counter Social on your browser, on mobile, or through virtual reality goggles to enter immersive "counter realms." You can join a room or create one yourself.
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