As anyone who reads my stuff knows, I have been kicked off Facebook permanently, and while initially confused as to why it happened, I came to the conclusion that it was because of my posts about the genocide under way in Gaza and the running of the community standards system by zionists1. At the time, I said I’d look around for alternatives. I have been on social media for a while with the longest time spent on Facebook, followed by Xitter (perhaps as long as 8 years for the latter), while I joined both Mastodon2 and Tribel3 in November 2022 as possible alternatives to then Twitter, which had been taken over by the idiot Elon Musk. Tribel disappeared off my radar pretty quickly as it was very American in its content and the numbers of users seemed to be fairly small. Subsequent attempts to find it, indicate that is no longer in operation4.
Mastodon is decentralised so it cannot be bought by any billionaire bastard like Musk, but the number of users seems to be relatively small. It is operated by a nonprofit German company, and initially it was where many Twitter ‘refugees’ landed such that there were about 2.5 million monthly active users at the end of 2022. Now there are less than a million5.
Prior to my banning by Facebook, I also joined Threads, another Meta (Zuckerberg) site, and Bluesky, a decentralised (billionaire-proof?) system like Mastodon, launched by the former owner of Twitter, but now independent. Currently, Threads has about 270 million monthly active users, while Bluesky has about 35 million. However, Bluesky has grown significantly since the 2024 US presidential election, with up to a million users a day joining from Xitter5, after Musk outed himself as a Nazi, and kissed the Mango Paedo’s ring. While I have posted the same links to Threads as I have to Facebook, the pillocks or the zionists running the community standards on that site don’t seem as aware or as strident as those on Facebook.
Yet another social media site which I have embraced is Substack, and it is this which I have spent much time on ‘doomscrolling’ about Ukraine, Gaza or the Mango Paedo6. However, Substack is different in that it is best described as the intersection of a traditional blog (such as the Blotreport) and a digital newsletter. Users can create their own site complete with a custom landing page and title, and a custom domain if they have one available, for the purpose of publishing posts that are sent directly to subscribers’ inboxes and archived online7. While I put essays on the Blotreport, I also publish them on Substack on the same day. I essentially use it like a parallel blog. It apparently has about 35 million active users8.
Other social media sites include the following:
Minds
Minds is an open-source, decentralised network designed to ‘promote online freedom’. It combines features from platforms like X and Facebook but without censorship or the overwhelming political focus seen on other social sites. You can earn Minds cryptocurrency tokens for your activity, which can then be used to boost your posts or your channel. It doesn’t rely on data collection, nor does it have the crappy algorithm feeds that plagued my time on Facebook9. It is less polished than Facebook, is difficult to understand, and has a limited number of users10. It doesn’t sound promising.
Diaspora
As one of the first decentralised social networks, Diaspora is open-source and offers many features similar to traditional social media, including the ability to post status updates, share photos and videos, and comment on other users’ posts. Unlike traditional social media platforms, Diaspora ensures that your information is not centrally collected or exploited by corporations, making it a strong alternative for privacy-conscious users. It is free and there are no advertisements10, the presence of which was one of the extremely annoying features of Facebook. This sounds like it might be worth a look.
Telegram
Telegram is one of the fastest-growing social platforms, with over 500 million active users. What sets Telegram apart from Facebook is its focus on privacy, speed, and usability. It has numerous features, especially one rivalling Facebook Messenger but with the added benefit of superior encryption. It also supports group calls, continuous scrolling within chats, and the creation of public channels, allowing users to engage with thousands of followers, much like Facebook’s groups and pages. However, posts from contacts are not displayed in a feed, and users need to manually check individual chats and channels. It is a more focused communication tool, so it lacks the broader social networking features found on Facebook10. While Telegram’s focus on privacy is its main appeal, it’s also its major source of criticism. Critics have pointed to the fact that Telegram is often used by criminals and terrorist groups to communicate anonymously and that there’s little to no content moderation5. If I go into crime, I might check this out.
UpScrolled
Last, but not least, is the social media site UpScrolled, which was mentioned by a Guy Christensen, whose video I stumbled across when hunting around online after my banning from Facebook1. It is apparently a very new site and its promo makes it sound very good, but they all do. Their mission statement says, in part: “Driven by a deep commitment to fairness, we strive to empower every voice through the reach and freedom our platform offers. At the core of our mission is a clear promise: no shadowbanning*, no biased algorithms, and no favouritism. We’re not here to push agendas — political or otherwise. We’re here to do what’s right, grounded in a genuine sense of social responsibility”11.
UpScrolled was built by Palestinian-Australian developer Issam Hijazi and supported by the Tech for Palestine incubator, and it markets itself as an alternative to Instagram (which I have never used). UpScrolled “is everything Instagram refused to become”. They state that Meta keeps silencing those very voices (I know!). From Palestine activism to BLM, LGBTQIA+ rights to India’s farmer protests, shadowbanning has become the norm. Posts disappear, reach drops, accounts get flagged12, or in my case get permanently banned. This has been documented by researchers, journalists and thousands of users.
The fact that it comes from a Tech for Palestine incubator is preferable to a ‘Meta for Israel’ that bans people for simply pointing out that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, as many human rights organisation have already pointed out13.
As an added bonus, UpScrolled is headquartered in Australia and its servers are in Dublin, Ireland11. I’ll check it out one day. However, I am in no hurry, as not being on Facebook is, in some ways, a bit of a relief.
*shadowbanning: A shadowban is what happens when a user’s content is visible to their followers, but invisible (or with significantly reduced visibility) to other users on a social media platform. Shadowbans are used by platforms to limit the spread of unwanted content without completely banning the user from the platform, and at the same time not informing the user. Shadowbanning is rife on TikTok and Instagram14.
Sources
- https://blotreport.com/2025/07/31/pillocks-or-zionists/
- https://blotreport.com/2022/11/09/joining-mastodon/
- https://blotreport.com/2022/11/06/joining-tribel/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/tribel/comments/1kb7fxc/tribel_gone_forever/
- https://adamconnell.me/social-media-platforms/
- https://blotreport.com/2025/02/21/doomscrolling/
- https://www.medianet.com.au/blog/the-rise-of-substack#:~:text=According%20to%20Medianet’s%202025%20Media,on%2Dplatform%20tip%2Djar.
- https://www.reallygoodbusinessideas.com/p/why-2024-should-be-the-year-you-start
- https://inspiretothrive.com/minds-social-network/
- https://fourthwall.com/blog/10-best-facebook-alternatives
- https://upscrolled.com/en/about-us/
- https://updates.techforpalestine.org/upscrolled-is-live-the-instagram-alternative-thats-actually-on-your-side/
- https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/07/israel-opt-israeli-organizations-conclude-israel-committing-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza-in-another-milestone-for-accountability-efforts/
- https://later.com/social-media-glossary/shadowban/
