his arrival Elon Musk Twitter meant turbulent times for this social network and caused confusion among users. But, Are there any similar alternatives to stay connected? The answer is yes, but none of them are “that easy” at the moment and they all have room to improve.

“If I had to bet on the network that will replace Twitter right now, it would be Twitter itself,” he says. Cesar CorcolesProfessor of Computer Science, Multimedia and Communication Studies at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, who provides guidance on some alternatives to EFE and advice to consider before entering any social network.

Mass layoffs, executive dismissals, advertiser withdrawals, erroneous decisions regarding user verification, or Musk tweets with messages like: “remember Twitter will do a lot of stupid things in the coming months. We’ll keep what works and replace what doesn’t” is part of the chaotic descent of Tesla and Space X owner.

Although there are quite a lot of similar social media options, “none of the alternatives at the moment are as simple and easy as Twitter. They all have room to improve”, Córcoles thinks, noting that one of the biggest problems is migrating followed accounts to another site, because not all of those who change will do it on the same social network.

It is not easy for now to know whether there is a loss of users or if they use more or less. Previously, Twitter was a public company, but “now all power basically belongs to Elon Musk, therefore there is little need to publish this data publicly”, says Córcoles.

As for alternatives, it’s all about getting used to using them. “Now—he says—nobody remembers getting a little lost at the beginning of Twitter.” He also speculates that some of the users going to other networks may not leave the first network as it is “where everyone else is”.

Twitter-like networks

Twitter’s “most obvious” alternative, Mastodonsays it has tripled its users in recent weeks and has more than a million monthly active users according to its founder, Eugen Rochko.

Mastodon works similarly to Twitter, you can type Messages called “toots”share, reply or “like”, among other functions.

However, there is no single Mastodon, instead it is distributed to “instances” or servers, anyone can decide to set up or rent a server and open a cloud server based on geographic region or specific topic.

The new user must choose which server to register on, and communication can happen between these little mastodons. This decentralization “very powerful, but can be complicated for some people”also look for one specifically based on the type of description used.

Each server has its own usage policy, some of which are “extremely respectful of privacy, but you have to be sure.”

Córcoles reminds you that regardless of the social network chosen, the user must first do their homework and review their privacy and usage requirements, as well as make a choice about who to follow and who to follow you.

Created in 2007 and senior across networks Tumblr, “Middle ground between Twitter and a traditional blog”, It allows you to post pictures, videos, audios and users can follow each other.

Diaspora, based on decentralized servers called “split”, emphasizes privacy, allows the user to choose the data they want to use for signing up, and ensures that it is not used to monetize the website. It works quite similarly to Twitter, which includes tagging, posting, mentioning, or “like” others.

Another alternative suggested by Córcoles is giving. a new approach to other social networks What many people have like Facebook or Instagram can be used to use them like Twitter, because they now act like Twitter in many ways.

RSS, for its part, is a syndication or content aggregation mechanism that allows users to subscribe to interests such as media or bloggers, he explains. The system warns what they publish and collects it in a reader.

Whichever option is chosen, Córcoles points out something he considers important: Where does the money that costs to maintain this type of service come from, and it depends on the number of users, among other factors.

Payable for some of its functions, like “if it’s ad-funded, you’ll like it more or less but you understand the financing model” or another similar network, micro.blog, could be another option with a basis behind it. “You should at least ask yourself.”