Alternate platforms
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So, Alex Jones – the face of Info Wars – has been banned from YouTube (which is devastating, because he had hundreds of videos on his channel) and Facebook. The InfoWars podcast has been delisted at Apple and has been removed from Spotify. He’s been, in short, totally deplatformed. The only company that hasn’t completely deplatformed him is Twitter, and that’s probably only because Twitter is currently being scrutinized for banning conservatives.
People like Vox Day are wagging their fingers and saying, “big fucking deal. You knew this was gonna happen!” and leftists are having orgasms left and right. I, however, think this fucking sucks. Regardless of how you feel about his politics, this is completely unfair. Furthermore, the whole Sandy Hook thing people accused him of was total bullshit anyway, and that probably factored into his deplatforming.
So, what can we do in the meantime? The rest of us are going to be deplatformed eventually. Get too popular and they’ll hit you with their banhammer. If you haven’t noticed, there’s some links in the sidebar where you can follow me on other platforms. I am going to talk about those platforms, and others.
Videos
There aren’t many alternatives to YouTube. The biggest ones are DailyMotion and LiveLeak. Oh, and Vimeo but they’re just as converged as YouTube. After all, they have a nasty habit of banning Christians from uploading videos that might challenge the leftist narrative.
Right now, the best alternative is probably BitChute. This site is unique because they use BitTorrent technology to deliver content. In fact, the BitTorrent client is your browser, thanks to something called WebTorrent. Here is a brief explanation from their FAQ:
“WebTorrent is an independent project started by Feross Aboukhadijeh in October 2013 and is the first torrent client that works in the browser. YEP, THAT’S RIGHT. THE BROWSER. BitChute is powered by WebTorrent.”
That’s pretty amazing. I am very impressed, and at first the videos were kind of choppy (if this happens, just wait for it to load a bit, and then play) but I just watched an Alex Jones video and it played smoothly.
It is possible to embed videos, but their instructions are specific to WordPress blogs and an iframe plugin you need to install. Since I already know HTML and stuff, it’s pretty easy for me. YMMV, however. This will probably change in the future as more people use the platform, and after this, I hope it becomes more popular.
This one looks like a YouTube clone. This site is brought to you by the same guys that gave us Steemit (see below), and the monetization is essentially the same. I just glanced at the home page, and there aren’t videos featured on the main page, but if you want to see political stuff, you’ll have to search for it. Still, it’s an alternative platform, and that’s good.
Real Video, or Real.Video as it seems to be called, is another video hosting platform that appears to be fairly brand new. You cannot just join – you have to be invited to join, and you can request an invitation. I haven’t done so because I don’t have any video content to produce, and I think it’s important for content creators to have a crack at it first.
It looks a lot like YouTube, and has one important feature that YouTube has, which is channels. You can’t embed any of the videos, however, and you cannot select between different qualities of videos, but you can go full-screen.
Social Networks
So Facebook – bloated as it is; my God there’s an insane amount of ads on that site – and Twitter (still permanently banned from there) are hell-bent on banning conservatives and anyone that challenges the leftist narrative. So, if you’re an outspoken conservative, libertarian, alt-righter or just someone who disagrees with the left on anything, prepare to get banned. Here’s some other places you can connect with others. Make an account now and tell your friends so they can join too.
I’ve been with Gab since the beginning. Yes, there’s a lot of neo-Nazis and Jew-haters there. There’s a lot of racists there. However, this place is very much for free speech, no matter how unpalatable or offensive it may be. As long as you’re not directly threatening someone’s life or anything.
Plus, like other platforms, you have the ability to “mute” other users. If someone posts something that you don’t like, but doesn’t break the rules, just mute the user. You won’t see their posts anymore. It’s that simple, but leftists are incapable of doing that, which is why they have these stupid Trust & Safety councils slouching about, banning people and shit.
Gab works like Twitter, and it has an upvote/downvote function like Reddit. You can follow people, but you can’t follow hashtags. Yes, this uses a hashtag system, and there is a generous 300 character limit. You can post pictures and I think Pro users can post videos.
Gab also has something that the others don’t. You can become a Premium content creator, and charge people to see some of your content via subscription. In other words, Gab allows you to monetize your feed. I haven’t done that yet, but I may do it in the future.
Gab has an Android app, but it’s not in the Google Play Store, and probably isn’t in the Amazon AppStore either. They tried to get an iOS app on the AppStore, but Apple decided to be assholes about it, so if you’re an iDevice user like me, you have to use the browser. It looks great on my iPhone and iPads. If you want to install the Android app, you’ll have to go to the website and install it from there.
You can laugh at the pitiful amount of followers I have. WrongThink looks an awful lot like Facebook, but without the insane ads, annoying game request notifications or censorship. There’s a ton to do here too.
It has Facebook-like features, like Pages, groups, photo albums, messages, but you can also create your own blog and sell products through their Classifieds section.
There’s Nazis here too, but if you want to block a user, you have to go to their profile first. It’s an extra step, but worth doing if someone is truly bothering you.
You can also get a pro membership which gives you extra promotion for your posts (called “honks”) and lets you see more information on who visits your profile.
As far as I can tell, there’s no mobile app for WrongThink. It looks pretty good on my iPhone, though.
Minds is a social network that looks a lot like Facebook, only nicer. You get the same features (blogs, groups, photos), and there’s a paid version too. You can also post videos here, which is really good.
The thing that differentiates this site from the others is the token system. You earn tokens for your contributions, and the more you interact and the more attention your contributions get, the more tokens you earn. However, in order to start earning tokens, you have to provide a valid phone number.
They also have a mobile app, one that I installed on my iPad. It is available on the Google Play Store and the App Store.
MeWe is billed as the Facebook alternative that does not track you or sell your information to third parties. There aren’t a whole lot of features here – there’s your main news feed, and there’s groups. Each group has their own little chat room.
You can post videos and photos, and you get 8 GB of free space. Not bad. Of course, these can be posted in your news feed too.
I really like the layout of this website, and I even like the color scheme. Plus, they have a mobile app that looks just as good as the site. It’s available on the App Store and Google Play. I think this one’s a really good alternative to Facebook, as it’s pretty simple and isn’t as feature-rich as the other social networks (besides Gab).
Thanks to KotakuInAction over on Reddit, I discovered this Twitter clone. I just signed up for it, and I couldn’t help but notice how the site’s layout looks so much like HootSuite, a service that let you manage multiple Twitter accounts. This service is closer to Twitter than anything else, and has the same features – your personal timeline and direct messages. Hopefully more people will gravitate towards it, especially if Gab goes down (and I hope Gab does not go down).
I thought I hadn’t signed up for this one, but it turns out I did a few months ago. Anyway, they bill themselves as the ‘private’ social network.
Idka has a newsfeed that’s kind of similar to the one on Facebook, but without the upvoting icons. The posts section has three features – posts (it’s like a blog), files and notes (like Evernote). You can upload files, and it turns out I uploaded a PDF file a while ago.
You can chat with other members you’ve added as friends.
Groups is a rather important feature, and has the same things as your profile – the ability to make posts and notes, chatting with other members and uploading files.
Idka also has apps for mobile devices, both of which are available in the Appstore or the Google Play Store.
This one looks like a combination of Facebook, Twitter, GoFundMe and a message board. There’s a space for blogs and a section called Stories. A Story on Oneway seems to be a photo essay, the kind you might see on BuzzFeed. Could be good for photography buffs.
They also have their own currency called wampums. I earned fifty of those on my first day.
You can also host videos on the platform
Oneway also has their own mobile app, available on the App Store and Google Play.
Image Hosts
Having a place to host your images is important. Not everyone wants to use Imgur. I’m just going to give you a list of image hosts.
Blogging Platforms
Steemit is a blogging platform that looks a lot like Medium. It works like Medium too, but with a little something extra — you can monetize your content. People vote for it much in the same way Redditors upvote posts, and you STEEM cryptocurrency for upvotes. Then you cash out.
Everything is organized by tag, and you can assign multiple tags to your articles. You can also comment on articles, and yes, you can earn money from your comments too.
[busy image here][Busy.org](https://busy.org)
This is another website powered by Steem, and at first glance it looks kind of like a Twitter clone, but click on the paragraphs of any given post, and the post is expanded. There does not seem to be a character limit, or at least one as restrictive as Twitter’s.
It works the same way as Steem, though – post, get upvotes, and get paid.
Conclusion
Since these are all alternative platforms, you’ll run into the kind of stuff you might not see on the mainstream ones – namely, racist and anti-Semitic crap. Most of these platforms give you the ability to block or mute unsavory users. In fact, you can do the same on Twitter and Facebook, but we all know that the sensitive snowflake SJWs can’t simply block people. Oh no, they want to censor people.
Gab and Minds are quite popular, and seem to have a large and active userbase. BitChute is also looking pretty active, and some prominent anti-SJW YouTubers have already moved to BitChute. Alex Jones is already uploading content there, so if you miss his stuff, you can find it there.
I think they’re all worth checking out, and I’ve signed up for most of them. Find the one most suited to you, and tell all your friends. The only way they can grow and thrive is if they get more users.