Other places where one still can communicate freely?

posted 3 years ago by Chrome 3 years ago by Chrome +34 / -0

From time to time I have the desire to discuss topics I am interested in with like-minded people, mostly stuff related to video games but different fields as well, and without having to be politically correct or having to call someone "they" or whatever the fuck. This seems to have become impossible on nearly all platforms.

Twitter? No comment.

YouTube? Heavily censored, nevertheless they are still allowing a few decent channels, but a lot creators have been forced to "self-censor" due to the ever present threat of demonetization.

Reddit? Some subs may still be relaxed, but KiA2 going private shows how dire the situation is, and it will only get worse.

Discord? Smaller servers can still be decent, but they hard to find and rare, the rest is full of woke normies and absolute filth. Even on gaming related discords one struggles to find decent people, and then there are still the moderators...

4chan? You won't get censored in most places, depending on the jannies of course, but most of the posts are of very low quality, a lot of spam, it is not a great experience for the most part.

I can't think of much else that is noteworthy, thus I'd like to know what you guys use and can recommend.

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– cccpneveragain 7 points 3 years ago +7 / -0

It sort of depends on what you want. I just threw away generic social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) totally for the most part. Haven't really missed it. Local friends and family? Texts mostly. If that goes down the censorship road then I have some alternatives.

Otherwise I have found I like to keep my online communities small. I hang out here mostly as it's fairly sane, yet I feel like it doesn't get too close to an echo chamber. This site is about the only place I converse with people I don't know personally.

As far as alternatives and mainstream stuff I still use:

Youtube -- prefer to check Odysee/LBRY first as I like decentralized platforms. If not I'll still go to Youtube.
Reddit -- I only go there to watch the apes in the ape house in liberal subs, or the very occasional question/discussion on extremely niche subs. Very occasional question means I average about one comment a month.
Discord -- never used much except to game with friends and I do less of that. I have Matrix set up and will be using as an alternative. The cool thing is it's a protocol and not a service. You can host it yourself if you like and with your own users and rooms you can only be censored by you, and you can participate in other servers with your same account pursuant to whatever censorship policy they decide.

If they come after my texting, then I will be pushing conversation to decentralized XMPP protocol services with encryption. Why push to Telegram or WhatsApp or something that already has a big target. Generally my texting is fairly apolitical anyway.

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– undecidedmask 5 points 3 years ago +5 / -0

Instagram is just horrible. You type a letter into the account search, and after going through who your friends follow, it will just be thirst traps. Constant teen and college-age girls taking very suggestive pictures. On the other spectrum, a lot of guys just flash their wealth and abs. Totally not great.