Meta and its owner and lord, Mark Zuckerberg, has threatened (again) to take their Scattergories from Europe. That is, shutting down Instagram and Facebook if they don’t let him play the way he wants and transferring our data to the US, to do whatever he wants with it without real supervision. We are not going to be so lucky and we doubt very much that he is going to comply with the same childish tantrum as always. But, just in case, we tell you the options we would have if they closed Facebook or Instagram.
The candles that I put so that that scourge called Facebook (or Meta and its subsidiaries) disappears once and for all, it seems that they are taking effect little by little.
While Apple has hit it where it hurts the most and the company has acknowledged that they will lose several billion with the privacy options of iOS, the European Union continues to insist that our data is not a bargaining chip.
Or rather, they are, let’s not be innocent. But at least, it is not the wild west and the brutal excess that is made of them when it is not European legislation that governs.
So Zuckerberg is back with the tantrum that, as long as they don’t let him further abuse our private life to make it an unbearable hell, he’ll take Europe’s Instagram and Facebook. It’s not the first time she’s said it and it won’t be the last.
What alternatives do we have if they closed Facebook and Instagram
Let’s see, the first alternative, after celebrating one of those victory parades with confetti and music, would be regain life, friendships and sanity. Go out there, remember that the real world exists and Facebook and Instagram they were depressing us, making us angry and destroying our mental health.
But who are we kidding?
Neither I who write, nor you who read, probably have a life and the sun is the ancient enemy of the geekyso we will have to look for other shelters.
Let’s start with the most obvious.
Twitter, the nation of trolls
It is already known: Facebook was the paradise of disinformation, Twitter that of the trolls and Instagram that of the fake, all the more false of a two-sided coin. Actually, they are all like that, but each one stands out more than the rest in one thing.
And if Zuckerberg’s two tentacles go, the closest option is Twitter.
Of course, the game changes, although the fake news and the possibility of having your life ruined by a joke remains. Chances are your uncle with the stale memes doesn’t know how it works, but emigration will be inevitable and the confusion, I won’t even tell you.
TikTok, the natural destination of Instagram exiles
Obviously, if you close Instagram, the pilgrimage of most of its native fauna will be towards TikTok. Let’s face it, it doesn’t matter a bit, because the networks play at copying and it’s not like you distinguish one from the other.
That will cause the displacement of the original inhabitants of that fashionable island, which unites the worst of each network and is seasoned by “that insufferable voice” and those moron dances.
When it happens that your mother gets into the fashion of making a fool of you, the youngest will go elsewhere, as they already did with Facebook and Instagram.
Other social media alternatives if you close Facebook
The reality is this, social networks succeed depending on their get the network effect. That is most of those you know are in them.
This cumulative effect only occurs in a few, which are the ones that remain, while a lot of imitators live on crumbs until they can’t take it anymore and, normally, they close or are absorbed.
Right now, that’s the situation. There are no networks similar to Facebook that are a real competitorwith which it is not that there is a clear successor.
In other words, there is no clear “Telegram” from Facebook, as there is (more or less) from WhatsApp.
However, the best options, which are currently only known to four geeks like you or me are:
- Minds. which is promoted as the anti facebook and even promises to pay you for your time and content creation. The focus on privacy it’s fine and the users you have are active. Good luck, though, in convincing your friends to go there. oh yeah and cryptos. Ugh.
- Vero. This social network seems the best alternative and try to stay without advertisers. Excellent design, various types of posts, a focus on not being addictive (so they say, at least). The truth is that, apart from the fact that Zack Snyder gave the details of his life, it is not that he is a mass adoption. At the moment it’s free, but it is possible that it charges an almost testimonial annual subscription. At least, that is the intention.
Good luck with that though it would be my personal bet to replace Facebook and Instagram if they closed. (Not true, my real bet would be not to use any social media, but if that’s not possible, then it would be Vero.)
As you can see, there isn’t much of a real alternative right now, except for the quagmire of Twitter and TikTok. Still, I don’t think Zuck is going to give up the second most lucrative market he has. Not if you don’t want to go looking for your stock price underground.
The entry What options would we have if Facebook closed? was first published in The Output.
