facebook: are there any alternatives?

Permies does not use carrier pigeons and our content can be viewed without requiring info.

And "honest al's used cars" ...  it turns out that al is not as honest as what is written on the sign.

What was that free community service a few years ago?  Meetup?  I can't remember the names of them all, but there have been several.  

I think to make permies more like facebook, maybe we'd do an expansion of the ability to "watch" someone. Maybe we rename it "friend." Maybe there's a link at the top of the page for "feed" and you'd see a list of the most-recent posts that your "friends" have made, so you can quickly scroll through it.

Maybe if there was a feed like that, we'd see more people posting in Projects and Meaningless Drivel and similar Forums about personal events (we're actually thinking of making a forum called "Personal Challenges").

Maybe, just maybe, there'd be a Private forum that the only people permitted to see it would be your "friends," so everyone could have their own private thread that only their friends could see. Moderating that might be a total pain, though! Maybe only people with 20 apples get their own private forum?

Ning.  I was thinking of ning.   It was open and free.  Until it wasn't.

meetup is still in existence, but having some challenges from blowback after WeWork purchased them a few years ago and they changed their culture.  It is not free for organizers (about $90/six months) but members can go to events without paying.

There was a facebook alternative I joined and then forgot about.  Local something?  Not sure if it got off the ground.  ETA pretty sure it never did.  It's hard to get enough eopel to follow with you/exodus from Facebook.  

I don't like the Feed format at all.  I like a forum, where discussions get organized and not lost and I can search by topic.  If Permies did have a feed, I'd really want it ot be optional please!  so it wouldn't take over my screen and distract me.  An optional "feed mode" might be cool...but only if it could be limited by topic to some degree, or some kind of coherence...I don't know how that would work.

The other alternative is build community around you in person.  It's hard, takes a long time, maybe generations, but it has advantages of ease of geography and conveinence.

paul wheaton wrote:Permies does not use carrier pigeons and our content can be viewed without requiring info.

And "honest al's used cars" ...  it turns out that al is not as honest as what is written on the sign.

What was that free community service a few years ago?  Meetup?  I can't remember the names of them all, but there have been several.  

OK, I'm still reluctant about seeing a news feed on permies, but IF it can be _seasonal_ and _regionally relevant_ then that would be really helpful.  In other words,

--you can put your settings to northern hemisphere or southern hemisphere, first of all;
--you can set to "cold climate" "temperate" or "tropical"
--you can set to urban/suburban/rural

then you hear all of the relevant things to "what might I do today in my permaculture systems?" and "what can we relate to one another about?" (harvest celebrating, planning our next season, planting, etc.)

It would be even cooler if you could get a feature that would show the other hemisphere six months ago.  E.g.,"six months ago today in Australia" for northern hemisphere folks...so you get double the time-relevant suggestions and don't have to wait the whole year.

These are features that I doubt will appeal to the majority of people on Facebook today, but maybe someday they will.

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:meetup is still in existence, but having some challenges from blowback after WeWork purchased them a few years ago and they changed their culture.  It is not free for organizers (about $90/six months) but members can go to events without paying.

There was a facebook alternative I joined and then forgot about.  Local something?  Not sure if it got off the ground.  ETA pretty sure it never did.  It's hard to get enough eopel to follow with you/exodus from Facebook.  

I don't like the Feed format at all.  I like a forum, where discussions get organized and not lost and I can search by topic.  If Permies did have a feed, I'd really want it ot be optional please!  so it wouldn't take over my screen and distract me.  An optional "feed mode" might be cool...but only if it could be limited by topic to some degree, or some kind of coherence...I don't know how that would work.

The other alternative is build community around you in person.  It's hard, takes a long time, maybe generations, but it has advantages of ease of geography and conveinence.

paul wheaton wrote:Permies does not use carrier pigeons and our content can be viewed without requiring info.

And "honest al's used cars" ...  it turns out that al is not as honest as what is written on the sign.

What was that free community service a few years ago?  Meetup?  I can't remember the names of them all, but there have been several.  

Kate Downham wrote:
Facebook has become frustrating for small businesses and other pages trying to get read, for people who hate ads, for people who don't like censorship, but it is easy to use, and a habit for many people, and that is probably why MeWe and other alternatives haven't taken off.

Mewe sucks, the search function on there is ridiculously bad. Open range was another alternative I've seen but it's pretty much all sales.

I definitely agree that Facebook is used out of habit and if they continue to try to monetize everything and persecute livestock groups and manipulate what people see it will eventually go the way of myspace.

I for one am tired of being target advertised to based on things I've searched, read on the internet, or talked about in the vicinity of my phone.

I read something about the founder of Wikipedia or Wiki something making a new social media alternative...that sounded like it could get traction!!!  I can't remember the name of it, but if anyone could do it, wikipedia could, right?

Which reminds me, a good moment for product placement--if you haven't donated to wikipedia, they could really use donations to make their year-end goals and continue ad-free and relatively free from partial interests!!!  I already give what I can but I will offer them an in-kind donation too, doubtful they'll be ale to make use of it but who knows?

wikipedia.org

LinkedIn.  Much more of a professional slant.  LinkedIn presupposes that you are either an entrepreneur or an employee who thinks like one.  LinkedIn is everything that fb is, minus all the stupidity and campy, childish posturing.  On LinkedIn, you're assumed to be truthful in what you're posting.

Jack Nelson wrote:LinkedIn.  Much more of a professional slant.  LinkedIn presupposes that you are either an entrepreneur or an employee who thinks like one.  LinkedIn is everything that fb is, minus all the stupidity and campy, childish posturing.  On LinkedIn, you're assumed to be truthful in what you're posting.

Thanks, Jack.  I've kept forgetting about LinkedIn.  

How do you use it, and what successes have you had with it?

paul wheaton wrote:I like the idea that permies can be the social media site for the topics and styles that fit within our publication standards.

I just had an idea, what if each profile on permies had  automatic notifications for regional events, and it would be set to "on" by default wehn you join? and starting now for all existing profiles too?  

Maybe automatic notifications about anyone who's in a 10-mile radius of you--a list of users.

I have not looked at the regional resources page much, there's just so much other material on here, but it would be great if there were more overlap of my local (sort of half-defunct) permaculture meetup with permies.com.  

Some questions I don't know but should:

Can I currently set up a "group" on permies and invite members to it? can I create an "event" in the group the same way I would create a meeting of a meetup I host?

The great success that I have had with LinkedIn was in 2016 - 2017 when I was busy putting my valuable life's energy into a fundamentally-flawed career selling (actually, trying to sell) term life insurance.  Yeah; I am ashamed to tell about it.  But we know better now, don't we?  How anyone in good conscience can peddle that (four-letter synonym for manure) is beyond me.  Paper assets = fake assets.  Got a great book in a Barnes & Noble in Sioux Falls the other day.  It's by Robert Kiyosaki, and it is entitled Fake: Fake Money, Fake Teachers, Fake Assets.  The cover design shows a serious-faced shot of the author with the focus of the camera on his outstretched hand in front of him in the universally-known "thumbs down" gesture of "death."  In the ancient Roman coliseums, if the crowd thought the wounded gladiator deserved mercy and life, they waved handkerchiefs over their heads to indicate "LIFE."  Thumbs down meant "DEATH."  The existing monetary system, the existing educational system, the existing thinking about what constitutes an asset, deserve "DEATH."  But I digress.  I have totally purged that LinkedIn profile, but in 2016 - 2017, I was trying to peddle term life insurance, and hoping to pass the Series 6 exam to be able to also peddle a paper asset contrived around 1935 called "mutual funds" (a "derivative" asset, an early precursor of the more modern-day financial derivatives so many of us know about such as collateralized debt obligations and mortgage-backed securities) and one day I put on a white shirt and a tie and got myself down to a photographer to get my pitcher took, and went and posted that on LinkedIn along with other hope-to-impress-others details about myself.  I had great success ballooning my network to many hundreds of names and profiles in a very short period, by being able to send people, perfect strangers, little reach-out messages.  It could become an obsession.  All night long, you can put time into it and lay groundwork for expanding your REAL network, the small minority of them that would become your customers.  People would click on them the next day and you could sometimes get someone's phone number and a few other details as well.  It's a great data-mining tool.  I am just glad I didn't succeed in selling anything, looking back, because cryptocurrency and genuine gold and silver are where it is at today.  

About six years ago we made modifications to the software so that anybody could create a new forum (public or private) whenver they wanted to.   At first we set it up for testing by staff - and it took a long time until the first tests were done.   Years?  If the testing was done quickly, we probably would have released the feature to the public within weeks.  

My guess is that the bugs are out, but I'm not sure.  And in the meantime, so many other features have been added, I'm worried if there could be other problems introduced to make it not ready for prime time.  

So ...   it is a feature that currently gets very little staff use and my guess is that very few staff members even remember the push to get it to the public.  

Can I currently set up a "group" on permies and invite members to it?

Staff can.  

If somebody on staff took enough interest to test it thoroughly, we could make it available to pollinators.  And after there was plenty of testing, we could move it to PIE people.   And then to people with at least 20 apples.  

Quote from Jack Nelson's earlier post. "I got a great book in a Barnes & Noble in Sioux Falls the other day.  It's by Robert Kiyosaki, and it is entitled Fake: Fake Money, Fake Teachers, Fake Assets."

I am just humbly offering an opinion here, as I almost bought this book at a bookstore.But after I sat down at the store and scanned through the book, I decided not to buy it. There was a lot of redundancy of his earlier works. And pages were missing.

I am glad the book helped you, Jack.I also think it is good for folks to do due diligence before jumping on this author's latest book.

Read reviews, especially one star reviews, folks.

*********************

As far as this topic of alternatives to facebook, I am also hoping to find such. I attempted twice in the past decade to 'do facebook'. Each time i only stayed on a very short time to attempt to be in private groups. Facebook just always felt too creepy and Big Brother to me.

Have other folks gone to MeWe?

I am part of permies.com, as well as a worldwide educational training program which has their person to person stuff on a private facebook group. I miss a significant chunk of what is happening, as I refuse to do anything on facebook.

I'd Love to share with the group a much better alternative to facebook/giving away our lives to those who commoditize (sp?) us.

Gail Moore wrote:I am part of permies.com, as well as a worldwide educational training program which has their person to person stuff on a private facebook group. I miss a significant chunk of what is happening, as I refuse to do anything on facebook.

I have this issue as well. The local permaculture group that I'm a member of is often organising and announcing events on Facebook only, and not bothering to put them in the email list, so non-Facebook people are missing out on good things.

It seems there's many good permaculture reasons for Facebook, but some people and organisations are behaving as though 100% of the population is on there. With Facebook getting creepier and creepier all the time, it would be a good idea to not rely on it as much and to find alternatives.

If I can add my thoughts and resurrect this discussion. It has been mentioned that Facebook is where everyone is. This is true; I think at last count something like over two billion people are on it. That may be high, given people with multiple accounts, accounts for pets, and people who are deceased. But it is the planetary watering hole for our species. And because of that, it serves a purpose despite its flaws. I have two examples for which Facebook served a tremendous need which all the alternatives (including the now defunct Google+) did not serve.
   1. In December 2016 I was sent to the hospital, I was there for a week and after being discharged was on disability for 2 1/2 months. My job at the time was low-paying and therefore disability did not meet our expenses. My wife went on Facebook and posted an urgent plea for help. Help arrived in the form of several dozen friends paypalling us money. Between those donations and disability, we met our expenses. That would not have happened on any of these alternative networks.
   2. Earlier, in November 2014, our region received seven feet of snowfall in two days. A Facebook Group was set up by locals to coordinate relief efforts and mutual aid. That never happened elsewhere (not even Twitter.) It is still in existence, coordinating information regarding COVID-19 for our area.

MeWe and Minds are nice, but at the moment, are flooded with early tech adopters, privacy-conscious people and others harmed by censorship. As a result, the posts tend to be of a more... niche..type. Except in their Groups; there is a better experience in the Groups of both MeWe and Minds (assuming they're well-moderated; spammers can easily get in and ruin things).

Facebook is mature and has become the default social network for the planet. The times may be long over for a challenger to arise and dethrone the reigning platform, like MySpace did to Friendster and Facebook did to MySpace. Consider that those (Friendster and MySpace) were really only popular for a few years; Facebook has been popular now for nearly fifteenish years. The alternatives like Diaspora, Mastodon and Pleroma (the decentralized nets) seem to have a learning curve too steep for the average web surfer. MeWe and Minds have potential, but I honestly do not see them dethroning Facebook, mostly due to the 'oddness.'

Based on my personal experience in reviewing my feeds, it seems that people on MeWe/Minds primarily use those platforms just to reshare web articles on contemporary issues, replete with the odd and variant point-of-views and so on. I don't need that; I can get my news from news sites. While I accept as a part of the package the sharing of news articles, I also prefer my social networks to be... social. You know, what's going on with you, cute things your pet did, your garden, whatever. Even job complainings and pics of your breakfast! (Again, groups may have a different experience.)

I predict that Facebook, despite its flaws and that ”everyone uses it but doesn't like it,” will continue and adapt and change down the years, barring any massive collapse of civilization. I also predict that those people who dislike Facebook, but who are turned off by the environments on the alternatives, will just seek out discussion fora (like permies.com) that match their interests, especially if these fora add social networky functions (like adding friends and perhaps a limited status update space, like maybe just on their own profile page visible to friends/followers (or public). Some combination of the discussion fora of olden times (the 90s) and ’modern’ social networks.

I am actually looking at permies.com itself as an alternative to Facebook. Granted, it isn't a 'general interest site' attractive to most people, but there is a wonderful community here. It can be amongst a host of places online that can replace the One (BookFace). Permies for the needs served here, and other discussion fora that serves other needs.

SIDE NOTE: I am not a Facebook ”fanboy,” I recognize its flaws; but basically, because everyone that I know in real life or digital life is there, I'm not likely to leave it. I'd miss too many friends.

Gail Moore wrote:As far as this topic of alternatives to facebook, I am also hoping to find such. I attempted twice in the past decade to 'do facebook'. Each time i only stayed on a very short time to attempt to be in private groups. Facebook just always felt too creepy and Big Brother to me.

Have other folks gone to MeWe?

I am part of permies.com, as well as a worldwide educational training program which has their person to person stuff on a private facebook group. I miss a significant chunk of what is happening, as I refuse to do anything on facebook.

I'd Love to share with the group a much better alternative to facebook/giving away our lives to those who commoditize (sp?) us.

I have moved on to MeWe, starting significantly more than a couple of years ago, and it has grown really quickly in that time, with improvements frequently, and now I am using it more than anything, though I use a few other media, and I do like a forum arrangement as a few of those others are forum sites. MeWe works so well with using groups for one's special interests, and one can leave one's account posts visible to those one selects as contacts there, which is functioning as 'friends' on media, and one can make a select list from that for 'special friends' for posts only visible for them. It is really easy there to put one's profile photo or any picture for it up, and I have my real face there, and as F F Primal I am in groups closely corresponding to subjects of interest here, not all as easily found in other media sites. A contact known on MeWe can get you to the groups for shared special interests.

I quit using facebook after years of hating it. I despise the newsfeed algorithm and I think it is fundamentally ruining people's view of other people.

I think the best alternative is to get off your computer and go talk to people that live near you. And as hard as that is for me, it is the direction I really want to take my life.

I do think Permies is a decent alternative for most of the information sharing in the topics surrounding permaculture. I also appreciate that it puts the views of people who have drastically different political and ethical views as I do into plain sight, as opposed to facebook's social bubble effect.

I've been looking at a decentralized, cloudless and off-grid capable alternative that is being developed called manyverse.
You can read more about the project on the homepage. I'll give a brief explanation from what I've understood about the system.

Manyverse is a social networking system where all the data exist on the users devices and it can be synced through wi-fi, bluetooth or servers. Currently there are two types of online servers known as Pubs and Rooms. Pubs provide a central location for data storage and the connection of the users devices to sync that data. Rooms do not store any user data, it just provides a network to sync devices over the internet which means that data is just synced with all devices currently connected to the room server.

I've not used it much because there is no translation to japanese yet. I might give some time to help the translation.

I think that this might be the best free and open alternative to facebook. What are your thoughts about this?

Alts to FB 1.) Minds.com 2.) Gab.com 3.) Discord.gg and join a GOOD group 4.) HERE

How do you find a good discord? Do you know of any?

This list should definitely include https://gab.com

They’re the staunchest advocates of free speech, having been deplatformed and deserviced - they’re literally building their own internet. The only things you cannot do on the platform is call for violence or post porn. Ie it’s based on the legal definition of “free speech”.

There’s also “locals” too.

Ultimately though I think there’ll be a reversion to smaller communities, like this. Better to live without big brother.

Angelika Maier wrote:I didn't know in which forum to put this:
Many of us depend a bit on facebook for regional exchange, families and small businesses very much for advertising.
Most of us don't like it, but are there any alternatives? Is something going off at the moment which could replace the much hated facebook?

Too many new ones to list, 4 years later but one new one that seems promising is Clouthub.

Gab is useful in that it has advertising, but I personally find too much negative energy there. Others may not have that experience. I still use it and think it’s preferable to FB.

PublicSq is a new one started in my own area, I am sorry to say I haven’t been on it but I’ve heard good things.

Wow that’s one I’ve never heard of. Will check it out. Thanks!

Anders Helgesson wrote:I've been looking at a decentralized, cloudless and off-grid capable alternative that is being developed called manyverse.
You can read more about the project on the homepage. I'll give a brief explanation from what I've understood about the system.

Manyverse is a social networking system where all the data exist on the users devices and it can be synced through wi-fi, bluetooth or servers. Currently there are two types of online servers known as Pubs and Rooms. Pubs provide a central location for data storage and the connection of the users devices to sync that data. Rooms do not store any user data, it just provides a network to sync devices over the internet which means that data is just synced with all devices currently connected to the room server.

I've not used it much because there is no translation to japanese yet. I might give some time to help the translation.

I think that this might be the best free and open alternative to facebook. What are your thoughts about this?

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:I read something about the founder of Wikipedia or Wiki something making a new social media alternative...that sounded like it could get traction!!!  I can't remember the name of it, but if anyone could do it, wikipedia could, right?

Which reminds me, a good moment for product placement--if you haven't donated to wikipedia, they could really use donations to make their year-end goals and continue ad-free and relatively free from partial interests!!!  I already give what I can but I will offer them an in-kind donation too, doubtful they'll be ale to make use of it but who knows?

wikipedia.org

I ran across this thread whilst doing permies stuff and was curious. You are correct, WT social is the name of it.

From: Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales launches Twitter and Facebook rival Quote: "Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a rival to Facebook and Twitter that he hopes will combat “clickbait” and misleading headlines. 

WT:Social, his new social-networking site, allows users to share links to articles and discuss them in a Facebook-style news feed. Topics range from politics and technology to heavy metal and beekeeping. 

While the company is completely separate to Wikipedia, Mr Wales is borrowing the online encyclopedia’s business model. WT:Social will rely on donations from a small subset of users to allow the network to operate without the advertising that he blames for encouraging the wrong kind of engagement on social media.

“The business model of social media companies, of pure advertising, is problematic,” Mr Wales said. “It turns out the huge winner is low-quality content.” 

While Facebook and Twitter’s algorithms ensure that the posts with the most comments or likes rise to the top, WT:Social puts the newest links first. However, WT:Social hopes to add an “upvote” button that will allow users to recommend quality stories."

Paul Sofranko wrote:
I ran across this thread whilst doing permies stuff and was curious. You are correct, WT social is the name of it.

From: Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales launches Twitter and Facebook rival Quote: "Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a rival to Facebook and Twitter that he hopes will combat “clickbait” and misleading headlines. 

WT:Social, his new social-networking site, allows users to share links to articles and discuss them in a Facebook-style news feed. Topics range from politics and technology to heavy metal and beekeeping. 

While the company is completely separate to Wikipedia, Mr Wales is borrowing the online encyclopedia’s business model. WT:Social will rely on donations from a small subset of users to allow the network to operate without the advertising that he blames for encouraging the wrong kind of engagement on social media.

“The business model of social media companies, of pure advertising, is problematic,” Mr Wales said. “It turns out the huge winner is low-quality content.” 

First off, thanks for pointing this out.   Alternatives are welcome and needed.  

WT:Social has some good ideas, but then their policies then go on to use terms like "and any other form of offensive behavior will not be tolerated among staff or our partners in the community."

Back in the day, I would have read that and thought "hey, no problem, it's just a 'be nice' policy".  But that day is a distant memory.  For those who have been bitten by social media censorship, vague, open-ended statements like these... that leave them limitless authority to be judge, jury, and executioner... there are warning bells going off all over the place.

So they don't have ads.  Swell.  But it makes little difference when your account is deleted for stepping over some invisible line you didn't know existed.

I get deplatformed from FB for saying anything that Zuck doesn't like.  I get deplatformed from WT for saying anything Wales doesn't like. Seems like a case of "Meet your new boss, same as the old boss" to me.

K Eilander wrote:

First off, thanks for pointing this out.   Alternatives are welcome and needed.  

WT:Social has some good ideas, but then their policies then go on to use terms like "and any other form of offensive behavior will not be tolerated among staff or our partners in the community."

Back in the day, I would have read that and thought "hey, no problem, it's just a 'be nice' policy".  But that day is a distant memory.  For those who have been bitten by social media censorship, vague, open-ended statements like these... that leave them limitless authority to be judge, jury, and executioner... there are warning bells going off all over the place.

So they don't have ads.  Swell.  But it makes little difference when your account is deleted for stepping over some invisible line you didn't know existed.

I get deplatformed from FB for saying anything that Zuck doesn't like.  I get deplatformed from WT for saying anything Wales doesn't like. Seems like a case of "Meet your new boss, same as the old boss" to me.

Agreed. I'm not sure if I'll do anything with it. After I signed up and basically learned that WT.social is primarily for sharing/resharing news links and the like, and not so much for personal stuff like what you had for breakfast and cute cat pix, I kind of regretted my decision. One of my main beefs with the alternatives to Facebook nets (like MeWe and Minds) is that they are used just for that, and no real personal discourse. I get tired of MeWe, for example, when on my contacts feed all I get are shred newslinks. Groups feed is more interesting, but still...

I was gonna go on but deleted what I planned to say as it treads on Cider Press territory.