The alternatives are numerous. Starting from other social media with real governance (like mastodon), through RSS feeds, to forums/newsletters etc.
I especially like the idea of RSS feeds that allow to content creators to control completely their distribution channels. There are many good RSS aggregators such as innoreader of feedflow (for android).
Also connecting with people in real world is great.
poszlem•39m ago
The best option would be to have a separate platform for the european heads of state to communicate with people that is not as partisan and crazy as X, BlueSky or Mastodon.
edit: not to mention that with how things are set up now, the people who actually add value will probably leave X, while the ones who shouldn’t be there will stick around and end up with an even bigger, uncontested audience. And their arguments of the opposite don't convince me. If all dissenting voices leave, the platform does not necessarily disappear, instead, it often calcifies into a radicalization machine. They are arguing for moral victory but a strategic defeat.
edit2: my biggest problem is not that they use X, but that they often use it exclusively, so your choice is to either follow them there or get what they are saying via a third party (a newspaper reprinting X or something).
mhitza•31m ago
Nothing prevents them from setting up a friendlier instance (domain name) where they only allow registration for verified members, block and defederate liberally.
poszlem•28m ago
So what prevents them from actually setting up friendlier instances is that people simply do not go there.
robin_reala•25m ago
(The rest have single-digit thousands to be fair: https://ec.social-network.europa.eu/directory)
surgical_fire•28m ago
Mastodon at least it not owned by any large US corporation, and therefore not subject to corporate whims of their leadership.
> while the ones who shouldn’t be there will stick around and end up with an even bigger, uncontested audience.
Yes, and that's how it falls into complete irrelevance.
poszlem•23m ago
> Yes, and that's how it falls into complete irrelevance.
I think you underestimate the influence the european politicians have on the amount of people using X and the fact that they can also influence the american audience this way.
surgical_fire•4m ago
I worry, however, how politicians might perceive public opinion if they account the response on Twitter as reality.
skerit•22m ago
That's really the key point: with Mastodon, you control your own space. So in theory you can create your own little bubble with your own rules.
Which is basically what Truth Social did, since it is also built on Mastodon, but they stripped out all the federation code—so it's just a walled garden that happens to use Mastodon's codebase. Maybe for the best.