HN Explorer

Ask HN: Is there any social network you trust?

28 points by burlesona ↗ HN
I've been thinking about deleting Facebook for a long time, and tonight I finally did it.

It's been a lot easier to tell everyone they should push that button than it was to actually press it. I admit I feel anxious thinking about people from a dozen years ago trying to reach out and being unable to find me. Though I suppose if someone really needs to reach me they'll be able to find a way.

So now I'm wondering, what, if any, alternative social network or connective infrastructure is out there? If I just wanted a private social graph with my friends on it, so that it's easier for us to keep in touch over time... where should I go?

Is there any social network that you trust?

32 comments

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bdibs
I don’t trust any website, especially any that monetize the data you feed it.

The incentives on the business’ side are nowhere near aligned with my side as a user.

krageon
I see a lot of people around me using Mastodon, but I've yet to actually try it myself (I don't really like social media). It's federated and you can run your own instance.
apeconmyth
I've just tried Mastodon recently and haven't been blown away by my experience so far, but I don't like social media either. It's more a Twitter replacement than Facebook. I'm looking to get out of FB as well...
veddox
Could you elaborate on Mastodon? I've been following it for some time, wondering whether it's worth the effort to join? (And try and drag some of my friends along as well ;-) )
earenndil
> If I just wanted a private social graph with my friends on it, so that it's easier for us to keep in touch over time... where should I go?

Email?

Not that they're replacements for facebook, but I like and have reasonable trust in HN, reddit, usenet, IRC (freenode, efnet, rizon, stuff like that).

maceurt
I have started trusting reddit a lot less after all their banning and quaranting of subreddits with little notice beforehand along with their non moderation of rule violations, blatant vote manipulation, vote botting, corporate posting, etc.

Irc is awesome though, actually feels like real communication with other people.

snazz
Some of the same people who frequented Reddit have moved on to Snoonet, which is another nice IRC network to hang out on (particularly #casualconversation).
franzwong
You can just create an account, add your friends, and login occasionally. If your friend contacts you, you simply ask them to chat elsewhere.
lazyjones
I'm not aware of anything with the breadth and discovery features of FB and without the disadvantages. Your phone's contacts list is probably the best compromise between privacy and ability to get in touch with old friends (I have 20+ years old contacts on it).

If you just want to be found, publish a personal web page, perhaps with an easy to find, SEO-friendly domain like firstnamelastname.info or similar. List your e-mail address there and people should be able to get in touch.

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pzone
Telegram works well as my primary social tool.
theshadowknows
I’ve been a fan of micro.blog for a while. It’s a great blogging service and has a sort of mini built in social network along with it.
mcv
I'm increasingly of the opinion that only distributed open source social networks can be trusted. I'm currently on Diaspora, which is pretty nice, though lacking in some features. I want to look into Hubzilla or Friendica, which have the advantage of being able to share with both Diaspora and Mastodon.

I know a lot of Google+ refugees moved to MeWe, and they have Tim Berners-Lee on their board and supposedly implement his Solid standard that lets users own their own data, but I have no idea what that means exactly; it's still a proprietary network.

hema_n
Reddit is a good one.
not_a_cop
Reddit has been known to be quite susceptible to shills for sometime. It is a source of both fake news and swayed opinion in favor of whoever has the most money to throw at it. I'm not saying that other places are immune to this, but the problems with reddit are actually very well documented, and management seems not to care. It's even possible they are shilling themselves.

https://thehustle.co/reddit-fake-comments

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2017/02/20/reddit-i...

https://medium.com/@coinmall/how-easy-and-cheap-it-is-to-man...

https://www.cnet.com/news/reddit-election-misinformation-201...

https://mashable.com/2014/07/31/unidan-banned-reddit-permane...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=YjLsFnQejP8...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxNvUWN3vYk

Also, reddit has changed comments before, or their CEO has. They have probably also banned people for less than transparent reasons.

Twitter is even worse with their shadow banning, and limiting viewership of twitter accounts, censorship of mainstream conservatives, while notably not censoring known terrorist accounts.

Youtube is known for allowing pedophilia posts, but having conservative politics also gets people banned.

I like mastodon, but I haven't used it enough yet to have a real opinion.

Also scuttblebutt (https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/) looks very promising but has made little real progress into mainstream as of yet.

Just a point of clarity - I am registered green party, but I don't think you can have true democracy with media manipulation.

_archon_
I trust the social network on my telephone's contact list more than any other. If I want to find out how someone is doing, I can do so via messaging or calling. It's a service I pay for anyway, though you can get it for free if you have an old device that you have only hooked up to the internet via wifi rather than cellular data access.
cweagans
That does a good job of handling the direct communication use case (i.e. Person A wants to talk directly to Person B), but it doesn't cover the passive viewing that I get a lot of enjoyment out of. I really enjoy seeing pictures of people's kids/pets/life events. I wish there was a better, decentralized way of handling the latter use case that everyone immediately has access to without signing up for another account and being subject to user-hostile data mining.
lexda15
Currently, I use Telegram. I believe that it doesn't read my messages.
mimixco
HN is a type of social network that seems pretty trustworthy.
ryankrage77
ello.co is a decent alternative to sites like deviantart or tumblr.
[dead] pavbelshippable
Not many social media platforms are safe these days. It all started with Facebook's user privacy drama that happened recently. But on a contradict to what I say, the big thing that motivates people to join different social media platforms is whether or not their friends or the 'cool' kids are using it. People are generally motivated largely by crows and if they see their friends or coworkers using these platforms, they will probably join them too to fit in. We call it 'FOMO', the 'Fear Of Missing Out'.

Basically, your everyday Joe joins because that's where everyone else is. Businesses join because that's where their potential customers are. Websites are there so we can be FOUND, social media is there essentially so we can be KNOWN. But those lines are now blurring.

People are slowly realizing that social media is no fun anymore. So I am liking micro-blogging and interest-specific social platforms like Pinterest and WONDR(https://mywondr.co/).

wtmt
There's nothing that can fill everything that Facebook offers, with the most important part being your friends will probably not use whatever you choose, even if it's only to keep in touch with you. If you're looking for a Messenger replacement to keep in touch with your social graph, you can try Telegram, Wire, or even Signal (if you're adventurous and want to piss of some friends). There are also several Twitter replacements, with Mastodon being a major one (decentralized, free).
eznoonze
> Is there any social network that you trust?

The real one?

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