Time for the great exodus on social networks? Like Elton John, Franck Leroy, president of the Grand-Est region, Mediapart or The Human Rights League, many people have decided to do their “#eXit” this Monday, the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration . A French collective has even developed HelloQuitteX, an app which offers users of the social network
If X has been considered toxic for democracy since its purchase by Elon Musk, Meta is also going through a zone of turbulence. The group that owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp has announced the review of its content moderation policy (and the suspension in the United States of its fact-checking program). Measures in favor of “free expression”, raising fears of a setback in the fight against hate speech or harassment of minorities. Since Mark Zuckerberg’s recent statements and his sudden proximity to Donald Trump, a large number of users have turned to Google to find out how to delete their Meta accounts, according to Google Trends data, spotted by TechCrunch.
RedNote in the promised land?
TikTok was, for its part, suspended for a few hours this Sunday in the United States, following the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on Friday to maintain a law banning the platform in the name of national security. The Chinese social network was quickly restored, marking one of the first political victories of the Trump mandate. “Without an American agreement, there is no TikTok,” however, warned Donald Trump. Fearing the ban on the Middle Kingdom’s platform, some American users, calling themselves “TikTok refugees”, rushed to the Chinese application RedNote, a hybrid of TikTok and Instagram.
Could this be the start of a new, more virtuous era on social networks? If so, are there ethical platforms, which are distinguished by their operating principles which favor decentralization, the protection of privacy and responsible moderation of content, where should they migrate? 20 Minutes takes stock.
Mastodon and Bluesky, the recommended networks
The report of the commission of experts on the impact of young people’s exposure to screens submitted to Emmanuel Macron last April made recommendations on the use of social networks among adolescents.
Behemoths like TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat should be avoided until the age of 15 due to the risks of exposure to inappropriate content and excessive attention-grabbing techniques. From the age of 15, the commission recommends opening access to “ethical” social networks, such as Mastodon or Bluesky.
Exit the blue bird, Internet users have been eyeing the mammoth of Mastodon since the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk. This microblogging site created in October 2016, an alternative to Twitter, is decentralized. The network operates using servers made available by associations and individuals, while traditional social networks operate on the basis of a centralized server. When joining Mastodon, the user chooses their server, called an “instance”. Each “instance” is free to set its rules regarding compliance with data protection or moderation. You will therefore have to be careful when choosing your instance.
After Trump’s election, the social network Bluesky, created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, gained one million users in twenty-four hours. Like Mastodon, it is based on a decentralized organization with several servers, but all owned by the platform. However, the sky is not always blue on Bluesky since its business model is based on users’ screen time.
Newmanity and green social networks
Created by Victor Ferreira (the founder of the Max Havelaar label), Newmanity is a social network supposed to offer a meeting space for all those who aspire to a more humane, more ecological and more responsible society. Like an eco-friendly Viadeo, it is a place for sharing between the general public and sustainable development professionals.
Social networks for seeing life in green are legion: let us cite Agissons-eco, which wants to “act for a sustainable future and rebuild the world of tomorrow”, Greenworlder which wants to “provide a path for anyone who wants to live a more sustainable existence, than this either individuals or companies” or even Tinkuy, a free online community where you can exchange “sustainable good deals”. Great initiatives, which will not satisfy fans of traditional social networks.
Supernova, the solidarity social network
With 60% of its advertising revenue going to charitable causes, the Supernova application, presented as an alternative to Instagram, has something to appeal. “On Supernova, likes earn money for associations. Every like you receive donates money to the cause of your choice, and every like you give does the same for someone else’s cause,” the company says.
Supernova is also committed to tackling online hatred, toxic comments, racism and even homophobia with “100% human moderation”, and not on artificial intelligence. “Being part of a new era of social media that does the right thing is a good thing for (PR) brands, rather than being part of a toxic old order that could harm them. Deloitte tells us that 80% of millennials only want to buy from brands that put the interests of others before their own,” enthuses Dominic O’Meara, founder and CEO of Supernova in the columns of TechCrunch.
Unfortunately, the French association Exodus, which makes it possible to analyze trackers, this software dedicated to collecting data on you and your uses used by mobile applications, identifies at least 11 used by Supernova. While on average, the applications analyzed by Exodus have 2.5 trackers. Well below Supernova’s 11. A problem already present on the Vero application, an “alternative” social network without advertising, launched in 2015, which uses no less than 7 trackers.
Diaspora and self-managed social networks
“Framasphère: it’s free, but you’re not the product! », argues Framasphere, the French-speaking node (called pod) of the free social network Diaspora.
Created in 2010 by four students from the computer club of the Courant Institute of Mathematics at New York University, Diaspora is open source (each user has access to the source code of the software) and collaborative software which allows everyone to put sets up its own decentralized social network.
“We do not resell your data. We do not study your behavior. We do not display advertising. And if the collective rules do not suit you, you can always install your own pod, with your own rules,” promises Framasphère.
On paper, this self-managed social network is a great idea, until an AFP dispatch points the finger at Diaspora and its decentralization as a place of expression for the jihadists of the Islamic State.
Decentralized, free and open source, secure, private, modular, extensible… The Canadian social network Friendica allows its users to integrate contacts from Facebook, Twitter, Diaspora, StatusNet and other services into their social and RSS feeds. It is possible to define the visibility of our actions and we can define an expiration date for our content. Friendica was used as an alternative to Facebook by the Occupy Nigeria movement. So, even if a technology is neutral, everything depends on the good or bad use we make of it!