Culture
Alternative Social Media Platforms Surging in Wake of COVID Clampdown
Mar
If anything positive can be said about the current madness encircling the globe, it is the fact that more people are seeking knowledge during their newfound time at home. Nearly all digital media is benefiting from this surge of stay-at-home traffic. However, the underlying trend toward restrictions on free speech and demonetization is also intensifying. Whether it is Facebook’s declaration that they will be “stopping misinformation and harmful content,” or YouTube announcing that content could disappear from its platform even if it does not violate current community guidelines, we are seeing a convergence of human decisions and algorithmic “mistakes” that doesn’t bode well for our ability to freely communicate within a free market.
Whether you are a social media user, or a content creator, censorship and suspensions are starting to become more and more frequent. Speaking from experience, this author has been banned by Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and even freaking Medium. Deplatforming an individual’s voice or an alternative independent media operation like Activist Post is all the rage with the big social companies as well as the overarching presence of Google attempting to decide our digital fates.
Fortunately, there are many alternative platforms where you can begin to diversify your information stream – and some of them even offer monetary incentives for using them. These new social networks offer their users privacy, and many also offer a piece of the pie in the form of cryptocurrency.
A new social media revolution and evolution is taking place and Activist Post isn’t being left behind.
In this article, I will explore several alternative social networks that offer you cryptocurrency for using them. I will also provide links to our own social profiles – and those we support – so you can get up to speed if you are not already familiar with these options. We have seen huge increases in participation at all of the platforms mentioned, so please help contribute to building this momentum toward a more free and prosperous future.
If you are a YouTube creator you have a plethora of choices available to upload and monetize your content. The alternative video sites Activist Post supports include — LBRY, DTube, 3Speak, BitTube, and BitChute.
What about social media alternatives? Well, I’m glad you asked – Activist Post can be found at SoMee (down at the moment for an upgrade), Steemit, Hive, Flote, Minds and we will also be posting our stories on LBRY very shortly.
Each of these networks provides something unique when it comes to what we’re looking for in a social media website. For instance, Steemit is the paid version of blogger, while SoMee and Minds are more like a paid version of Facebook with post rewards and ad revenue share. Flote looks a lot like Twitter with a built-in Bitcoin wallet and LBRY allows for the sharing of all types of content from videos to music, games and more.
However, the one thing most of these alternative social networks have in common is that they offer their users post rewards just for participating (except Flote which is more subscriber-based similar to Patreon but with Bitcoin).
Activist Post has signed up to support these promising alternative social networks in order to expand our social repertoire and stay ahead of the curve as open tyranny takes root and grows. We hope to see you on the other side with these new platforms. Please also sign up for our newsletter to stay on top of the daily news and ensure that we can maintain direct communication.
**By [@An0nkn0wledge](https://steemit.com/@an0nkn0wledge)**
Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post.