Continuing to post on TikTok right now feels a lot like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, but it may finally be time to abandon ship. This morning, the Supreme Court voted in favor of upholding the law banning TikTok unless Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance sells the site to American owners.
At the very least, it's time to look into backups (and speaking of backups, you should download all your favorite content from TikTok while you still have the chance, here's how).
Facebook and Instagram (and Threads, if for some reason you decided to use Threads) aren't much better. The apps aren't going anywhere, but Mark Zuckerberg has made it abundantly clear that Meta is growing more intolerant of LGBTQ+ people and content by the day. X (the artist formerly known as Twitter) is...I don't even know where to start with X. Let's just call it not an option.
So where do we gays go now?
How do we keep up with friends, disseminate information, or build communities? There's no replacement for IRL community building, and there's much to be said for knowing your neighbors and the people you share a real-life, in-person place with, but the internet and social media are a vital part of our social ecosystems too. We shouldn't have to give that up just because the people who own the most prominent social media websites are hateful, bigoted, billionaires — or at the very least willing to carry water for them.
Good news, there are alternatives. We will find ways to continue connecting and thriving. But it's hard to imagine going through the process of setting up a social media profile only to have the platform turn out to be a dud or a total pain to use. We have weighed all the options and compiled a list of the most LGBTQ+ friendly websites to start getting set up on.
Loops is a part of the Fediverse. Brief intro on the Fediverse: the Fediverse isn't a social media platform, but a bunch of platforms all interconnecting, all existing on an open-source protocol called ActivityPub. It's very interesting, and really well explained in this article from The Verge. Many TikTok users have flocked to the Chinese app RedNote in anticipation of TikTok's ban. Joining RedNote may seem like an "eff you" to the fascist censorship of the ban, but here's the rub: Not only is the app nowhere near a 1:1 replacement for TikTok, but given it’s both from China but operated from there, is subject to censorship and/or removal of content and users who violate the country’s numerous laws on speech — particularly anything anti-communism —non-hetero gender expression, and, well, you get the idea. What’s more, the app falls squarely in the definition of the law being used to ban TikTok and could itself be blocked from U.S. users if and when lawmakers get around to it.
So in lieu of, well, all that, Loops is a smart option to set yourself up with. It's still in development, but if you've got an iOS device, you can download the app on TestFlight. First, because as part of the Fediverse, you can host your account on an instance that is as pro-LGBTQ+ as you want. Second, Loops won't use your videos to train AI. Say no more, I'm in.
Pixelfed is another Fediverse venture and is run as a part of Pixelfed. Pixelfed has a similar interface to Instagram, but instead of the whole website existing on one server like with all the big-name social media sites, each Fediverse account can be hosted on a server of the user's choosing, which the Fediverse calls "instances." You can even create your own if you're inclined to do so and a bit tech-savvy!
Instagram is arguably my favorite social media platform and the one I've been most stressed out about finding a substitute for. I will personally be trying out Pixelfed because Pixelfed's feed is CHRONOLOGICAL. YEAH. I really buried the lead, didn't I?! Pixelfed's got the #1 thing that users have been begging Instagram to bring back for years. That alone makes the app worth trying out.
Of all the big social media alternatives, you're probably most familiar with Bluesky. Bluesky is the clear frontrunner for an X substitute, which isn't surprising given that it started out as a research project under former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. In 2021, Bluesky went from a research project to a fully fledged, decentralized social media platform.
It's not perfect, but it's incredibly promising. The big draws? It's a similar experience to X but with the distinction of not being owned by Elon Musk, not being infested with neonazis, and having community guidelines prohibiting harassment based on gender identity, sexuality, or race. That, and it seems to be the X alternative that adult content creators are choosing to use, should you like to keep it spicy on main.
Trust Cafe is a new spin on what was once WT Social, a social media company from Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales. Pros: Trust Cafe's mission, according to their FAQs, is creating a social network "where honesty and authenticity are valued above all else." They're looking to create a "non-toxic social media platform" and are "against hate speech, harassment, and misinformation." It also has a somewhat old school interface, which is a welcome respite from the chaos and clutter of so many websites.
Cons: There is a lot of AI generated content. There are entire sections dedicated to it. While it is at least clearly marked, one of the biggest issues with Facebook is how unescapable AI has become, and a movement against AI would make Trust Cafe a significantly better option.
It is still way better than Facebook though, and worth trying and helping to work out the kinks.
If you don't make any other swaps, even if you still use Meta-owned services like Facebook and Instagram, stop using Messenger. Messenger collects more of your data than any other messaging app and more than any of Meta's other apps. Messenger isn't just collecting a massive amount of information about your messages, or the device you have Messenger installed on, oh no. It's collecting that massive amount of data from every device that's on the same wifi network as the device you have Messenger installed on. And that's happening on every time you connect to a new wifi network.
There's more, a lot more, but that's the factoid that got me to switch to Signal. While Signal is not explicitly LGBTQ+ friendly, privacy and data collection is undeniably a queer issue. It has a high level of encryption keeping your messages secure, and the only data it collects is the data you use to sign up with. If you were considering WhatsApp as an alternative to Messenger, now's a good time to remember that WhatsApp is also owned by Meta, and has had its own data collection issues.
TL;DR Delete Messenger, get Signal. Please.
