KingWallop

ello.co really nice functionality doesn't sell your info

dontwatchtv

Why would anyone down vote this? FB employee?

forgetmyname

Facebook's angel investor was the start investment arm of the CIA, IN-Q-TEL. Why is there no alternative? Because they are allowing unfettered access to communications. It is a working system for the 5 eyes and there is no operational good reason to fund another website that will collect and aggregate the same data on the same persons.

HexTq

Because it gets shot down before it can make it big.

Karys

I don't personally use social media of the type anymore, but I have heard good things about both ello.co and tsu.co

123_456

People have invested too much time in Facebook. All their photos and videos are on there, and so they are reluctant to switch. There's no easy way to download, and transfer all your stuff.

FriedFood100

Diaspora (social network) https://diasporafoundation.org/

Diaspora (currently styled diaspora* and formerly styled DIASPORA*) is a nonprofit, user-owned, distributed social network that is based upon the free Diaspora software. Diaspora consists of a group of independently owned nodes (called pods) which interoperate to form the network. As of March 2014, there are more than 1 million Diaspora accounts.[1]

The social network is not owned by any one person or entity, keeping it from being subject to corporate take-overs or advertising. In September 2011 the developers stated, "...our distributed design means no big corporation will ever control Diaspora. Diaspora* will never sell your social life to advertisers, and you won’t have to conform to someone’s arbitrary rules or look over your shoulder before you speak."[2]

Diaspora software development is managed by the Diaspora Foundation, which is part of the Free Software Support Network (FSSN). The FSSN is in turn run by Eben Moglen and the Software Freedom Law Center. The FSSN acts as an umbrella organization to Diaspora development and manages Diaspora's branding, finances and legal assets.[3]

djsumdog

So Federated Social Networking is the answer yes, but currently it's a bit hopelessly broken:

http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/revisiting-open-source-social-networking-alternatives--cms-22445

poly

Whenever i bring up diaspora* those who i suspect are establishment shills go to great lengths to discourage its use. This could be reverse psychology, or an unintended endorsement.

djsumdog

It wasn't well designed. I followed it from its original release and, at the time, it used a crazy stack of Rails + Mongo + can't remember whatelse that no standard webhost had. I wanted to run a node, but it was before VPSes were affordable. The install instructions were complex and only for Debian/Ubuntu. No CentOS. No openSUSE.

I haven't looked at it in a while and I'm sure it's tons better now, but that earlier barrier to entry was a problem. They were just kids too and they ran into a lot of the issues that have moved devs away from Mongo for primary data storage (vs just a cache).

Today, the federated social network landscape is pretty broken. Scroll up to see my other link. Or hell I'll just past it again: http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/revisiting-open-source-social-networking-alternatives--cms-22445

FriedFood100

I've become a big believer in the idea that there are shills against this type of thing. You can imagine how many corporate/government interests there are in having facebook be the predominant social network, and why something like diaspora would be met with hostility.

Another project I can think of that gets a lot of suspicious opposition is Project Ara, definitely check that out when you get a chance. That also can also be explained by upsetting corporate/government interests.

arrggg

Yes, this exists, but it is not easy to join. You cannot join it from the page you linked, and the first like off that page is a wiki page that starts with "the short version". At which point regular people give up, which is why the biggest diaspora site is only 20k users.

Until it is quick and easy to join, Diaspora fails.

ElspethTirel

Agreed. I tried out Diaspora, but it's just...not user friendly. It won't catch on. It's the same reason Google+ failed.

PraiseIPU

https://podupti.me/ sign up page

FriedFood100

You make good points, but it's the best alternative I could think of.

arrggg

Unfortunately, you are correct, it is the best alternative out there.

Somebody needs to point the LibreOffice or Openoffice people their direction. Those two open source projects got enough funding to do some real good work and make a difference.

golisten2lennywhite2

Ad choices will help you.

Keeok

You can make lots of money in data mining. Also Facebook just buys any competitors keeping themselves on top. They are to big to fail.

NeedMoarGuitars

Because a billion plus people don't care about privacy or being marketed to by advertisers. They're pretty happy being the product not the customer.

SavePrivateRyne

https://ello.co/beta-public-profiles

This is the one I think of when I think of the alternative. I'm not on Facebook and haven't been for about 4 years but I feel like I read about alternatives every couple of months or so.

People are lazy. Lead the way. Hop on an alternative that has promise.

sinjinsmythe

Facebook alternative that doesn't sell your info? It's called "real life"

luckyguy

I'm pretty sure that sells your info too.

sinjinsmythe

well either I have been screwing myself out of royalties or I am just plain bad at business cause I haven't seen a wooden nickel from the ad revenue yet

ElspethTirel

But how are you going to communicate with your friends across the world? Can't trust phones. The mail isn't safe either, and also mostly controlled by the government. How could we ever hope to form anything like a revolution if we don't have a secure place to socialize- not just chit-chat, but really communicate?

Social media isn't a bad idea, it's just abused by the powerful right now to control the unaware- ex: Facebook social experiments and how ads can manipulate (which obviously we know already, but the internet allows for a lot more).

3dk

Signal, instead of Whatsapp.

Tutanota or Proton Mail, instead of unencrypted email.

Don't post to facebook, only use it to invite people to your own IRC channel, if they want to chat.

BRITTEACH

Sad, isnt it? But there is no money in integrity. Business ethics is an oxymoron.

Begin with the finance industry and all those mortgages and student loans, continue with the automobile industry and follow with the sports industry and the use of juice in the major leagues.

That's just for starters.