Here are the best ones you can try

The age of Elon Musk’s ownership has officially begun over at Twitter’s headquarters. The billionaire tech mogul has purchased the social network in a deal valued at $44 billion. Elon’s plan is to eliminate the issues he has with his favorite social network. Among them are strict moderation practices — which he suggests limit free speech — bots, and many others.

Twitter’s future seems uncertain. Musk fired Twitter’s CEO, CFO, and general counsel on his first day at the company. Now he’s planning to charge for the verification symbol. Changes are coming fast, and we know many of you are worried about what Twitter will become. We also know many of you aren’t planning to stick around, so we’ve put together a list of the best Twitter alternatives in case you want to take all your social networking elsewhere.

The best Twitter alternatives

While Twitter is a bit hard to replace, some alternatives can make a good home for all your posts and social activity.

Something’s not right if you have to be worrying about who owns your favorite social network. This is what sets Mastodon apart — no one owns it. You can think of Mastodon as a decentralized Twitter alternative. People control it via servers, which you can switch between at will. It also runs no ads, and you get to pick what you see in your feed, as opposed to a corporation and algorithm.

Mastodon’s posts are “toots.” The word seems oddly familiar and very similar to Twitter’s “tweets.” The UI is actually very much like Twitter’s, too. It even has hashtags. And if you’re into news, there’s a special section for those types of posts. It’s likely the best Twitter alternative if you want a similar experience without all the bureaucratic downsides.

If you’ve ever been around the internet, you probably know of Reddit. This is the most popular forum-style website in existence, and the best part is that it’s community-driven. The website divides topics into subreddits. Each has its set of rules, and votes prioritize which content shows up first. You can either upvote or downvote a post, and the website will prioritize all posts by popularity.

While this news and post aggregator isn’t quite like Twitter, it’s a great network you can help shape. You can easily decide what you want to read about, and there is pretty much a subreddit about any given subject. Additionally, voting will help weed out the posts that most of the community doesn’t like, so the content is naturally curated.

Cohost is another social network that’s actually very similar to Twitter, but with a more controlled philosophy in mind. Like Mastodont, it has no ads, and the company doesn’t sell your data. Additionally, no algorithm will try to decipher what you should see or not. As such, all posts show up in chronological order.

The only downside about Cohost is that it’s still relatively new, so there’s a bit of a barrier to entry. Anyone can sign up, but only those with an invitation code will be accepted immediately. Users without an invitation will have to wait a few days before they can start commenting. This is an excellent way to prevent spam and bots from doing as they wish.

CounterSocial is very special for those who like to live on the verge of the latest tech and social media services. It offers a constant stream of content, curated by your watchlist. It’s all end-to-end encrypted, and privacy is of the utmost priority.

All technicalities aside, though, CounterSocial is actually quite an impressive social network. It is available on PC, mobile, and VR. It even has a VR world you can navigate with your goggles. CounterSocial is also very clear about its strict policies, claiming it suffers from “No Trolls. No Abuse. No Ads. No Fake News. No Foreign Influence Ops.” Perfect for all of those worried about Twitter becoming a free-for-all.

We know this one is a bit odd, as Facebook is another highly-criticized social network, but it could be a good Twitter alternative. What good is a social network without people, right? You could go to any of the other best Twitter alternatives, but chances are most of your friends and family members won’t be there. You can be sure they’ll be on Facebook, though!

Facebook is also known for being a well-managed network with hard-set community guidelines and controls. Nothing is perfect, but Facebook tries to keep things pretty controlled. Or at least as much as possible.