The Fediverse has become an increasingly solid alternative to social media as we know it. That said, it’s still somewhat small-scale and most people don’t even know that it exists. Certain recent events, like Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, have become the perfect incentive for people to discover what decentralized social media are all about. A lot of them are also perfect alternatives, as they’re often clones or lighter versions of what we already know and use.
Today, we’re here to tell you what the Fediverse is and why large corporations can’t get a foothold in such an obvious way when it comes to these types of platforms.
What is the Fediverse?
The Fediverse is a set of decentralized social media in which user data is hosted in different instances. These instances, AKA servers, form federations in which the distributed data allow communication between them.
Let’s take a moment and think about Twitter: a single social media platform where all data is centralized on the company’s servers. Well, if it were in the Fediverse, that data would not only be at Twitter’s headquarters but it would also be found on various servers hosted around the world and owned by various people. This makes everything a bit more complex, but also more ethical, as they tend to be smaller alternatives, with power spread across many hands and where servers tend to be self-managed.
There’s no single company in control. Instead, data is managed separately and internal data is not accessible to others.
It allows global communities to be generated and within these, other smaller ones differentiated by different interests, like music, political communities, history or even anime.
This way, it makes it impossible for a single corporation to have all the power. And therefore, it’s also impossible for someone to take it over, as is the case with Twitter.
Fediverse alternatives to Twitch
Twitch is the most famous streaming network in the world, with its own genuine stars. However, many users are against the social media platform because they don’t consider it to be an ethical platform. Not only because they believe that the service doesn’t distribute rewards fairly, but also because they consider that some rules aren’t entirely fair, such as those related to gambling.
For this reason, the Fediverse has some decentralized alternatives to Twitch.
- OwnCast: a platform where you use your own personal server to make the broadcasts. It’s open-source and totally free.
- Librecast: similar to OwnCast, it’s a free and open-source alternative to Twitch.
Fediverse alternatives to Twitter
Twitter has recently been bought by Elon Musk and its management has been so tumultuous that it’s caused the service to be surrounded by complete chaos. As a result, many people are looking for ethical alternatives to the social media.
- Mastodon: The decentralized social media par excellence. It’s an alternative that’s very similar to Twitter.
- Misskey: A Japanese social media that’s part of the Fediverse.
- Pleroma: The most unknown option.
Other alternative social media options in the Fediverse
Lastly, here are some other Fediverse alternatives, each one with its own initiative reminiscent of other social media platforms, like Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
- Diaspora: has thousands of “pods” or communities around the world. These communities are intertwined and interrelated.
- Friendica: a decentralized social media platform with hundreds of users.
- Socialhome: an original alternative to Facebook that proposes a way of displaying the feed based on squares.
Translated by Sarah Odebralski
