Twitter recently updated their Privacy Policy and Terms of Service to allow us to buy merchandise from “some of the most popular names on Twitter”, without leaving “the Twitter experience”. Yay!? In one of my anti-capitalist urges, I decided to take another look at Twitter alternatives.
=> Privacy Policy | Terms of Service
As far as I can tell, there is App.net and GNU Social (formerly Status Net).
App.net offers a Twitter-like experience, API access, and no ads but it costs. The free option offers, 500MB of file storage and following up to 40 accounts (plenty to get started). Upgrading costs $36/year, which is an OK price but I pay just $25/year for my Flickr Pro account... The default client you download, called App.net on my phone, also gives you a totally confusing non-Twitter experience involving Broadcast. I had no idea what this was and switched to Riposte.
=> my Flickr Pro account | Broadcast | Riposte
Then I discovered the following passage in the App.net Terms of Service:
You agree to defend, indemnify and hold us harmless from and against any and all costs, damages, liabilities, and expenses (including attorneys’ fees, costs, penalties, interest and disbursements) we incur in relation to, arising from, or for the purpose of avoiding, any claim or demand from a third party relating to your use of the Service or the use of the Service by any person using your account, including any claim that your use of the Service violates any applicable law or regulation, or the rights of any third party, and/or your violation of these Terms.
I don’t think I can use this service! Specially considering this:
These Terms and any action related thereto will be governed by the laws of the State of California without regard to or application of its conflict of law provisions or your state or country of residence. All claims, legal proceedings or litigation arising in connection with the Services will be brought solely in the federal or state courts located in San Francisco County, California, United States, and you consent to the jurisdiction of and venue in such courts and waive any objection as to inconvenient forum.
Remember the abominable, cruel and unusual punishment called Three Strikes? No thank you! If I can choose, California is unacceptable.
=> GNU Social | join an existing server | kensanata on Load Average
#Social Media #Web
(Please contact me if you want to remove your comment.)
⁂
It is weird to see no mention of twister in a post called “Twitter Alternatives”. Unfortunately, the development is slowly beginning to stall 🙁
=> twister
– AlexDaniel 2014-09-11 01:47 UTC
=> AlexDaniel
I just checked it out and it doesn’t seem to be an alternative for my use case: sitting on the train and staring into my iPhone 4. The download page is full of alpha warnings. iOS clients unavailable… 🙁
– Alex Schroeder 2014-09-11 06:02 UTC
Yes 🙁
But it is fully free and distributed, so it is worth mentioning.
– AlexDaniel 2014-09-11 12:33 UTC
=> AlexDaniel
GNU Social is also free and distributed – but it uses PHP, which I don’t trust. 👻 Right now I don’t feel like I have a good alternative.
– Alex Schroeder 2014-09-11 20:13 UTC
text/geminiThis content has been proxied by September (ba2dc).