Social Media Freedom Scorecard: A Simple Guide to Platform Independence

Social media clearly isn't what it used to be. Most of you must already have been on X (formerly known as Twitter) or on Meta's platforms (Facebook, Instagram), and noticed some annoying changes. Between infinite ads and suggested stuff you never wanted to see, your friends' posts are buried. As these platforms gather more of our information, privacy issues become more serious. Here, users deal with confusing "shadowbans," in which suddenly their posts will reach far fewer people, even though hate speech and spam run rampant. To make matters worse, these platforms are owned by big corporations that can affect millions of users' lives with decisions that are largely made without those users' input. They can make rules in the early morning and by the late hour, those same rules can break you, they can play favorites on who gets what covered — as well as who gets what in terms of censorship — they can kick you out of your own account without explaining, why? Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads have all stepped in as alternatives, but they each have their own problems. Some are overly complex to use, while others are too minimal, and many merely replicate the problems of the platforms they're set out to replace. In this guide, we will compare social media platforms by comparing apples to apples, the stuff that really matters to the average Joe, like privacy, usability, and ownership of your own content. So by the end, you will have more clarity on which of such is a better route for you.