Bored And Scared Of Facebook? Here Are Some Alternatives Which Care More About Your Privacy

It's the social media version of David and Goliath. A bunch of new networks, which put privacy first and don't have one owner, are emerging as alternatives to Facebook.

Community owned networks: Diaspora and Friendica

Some are 'distributed' networks like Diaspora and Friendica, which are owned and administrated by the community. Their servers are distributed across the world and they interact with one another without a 'central owner' watching the bits and bytes go through the pipes. There are others like Ello, launched in March 2014, which promises not to sell user data to advertisers.

Tsu, recently in the news for having its links blocked on Facebook, pays users for posts.

And together, they're referred to as the "Facebook killers"

Though this is not the first time, Facebook has had challengers ¡ª most of them unsuccessful ¡ª the alternatives are mushrooming. So what explains it? Research shows an increasing distrust of proprietary networks, that is, large corporate social networks which own the servers that store/host user data. These include Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. A Pew Research Center survey from November 2014 found 80% of those polled were concerned about third parties accessing data they share on social sites, while 70% were "somewhat concerned" about the government accessing information they shared online.

"So much of the early promise of the Internet was around the democratization and sharing of information, but the data practices of mainstream social networks betray people's trust," says Ello co-founder Paul Budnitz

When the servers and owners are spread out one person can't control all the data. In the case of Diaspora, the community owns and manages the network. Friendica carries a disclaimer saying it is "developed and supported by volunteers in their free time". Ello is registered as a "public benefit corporation" in the US, a sort of guarantee that no ads will be displayed and no user data sold. With alternatives available, one would expect a mass migration from the biggest social networking sites. But Diaspora just has over 6.3 lakh total active users.

Ello clocked over 1 million users last year with users doubling in India over the past year. Facebook, on the other hand, has 1.44 billion monthly active users. "We thought the Snowden revelations would shift the power balance but it hasn't. Most people have resigned themselves to being monitored and having their behaviour analyzed," says Mike Macgirvin, who started Friendica in 2010.

Existing market forces can explain the situation. "In the case of a company like Facebook, the information on a server is in control of one private organization which can easily set up a business model around its service. Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon, Flipkart and most startups feed off of this system," explains Delhi-based web designer and Free and Open Source Software advocate Guneet Narula.

"Sharing with friends, family and other small social groups should be done in ways that do not put the data in the hands of third parties," says Eben Moglen, whose Free Software Support Network helped build Diaspora. Moglen, also founder of Software Freedom Law Center and professor of law and legal history at Columbia University, has been vocally anti-Facebook. It was his speech on privacy at NYU that inspired the Diaspora student founders.

While the lack of a single central command, as in the case of Diaspora or Friendica, makes for a freer network, it brings its own problems.

Volunteers running Diaspora and Friendica, for example, have had trouble weeding out ISIS sympathisers, who had attempted to shift base from centralized networks like Facebook and Twitter where they faced routine crackdowns. Macgirvin says this is something he discussed with his community, and that there can be an alternative mode of control. "We provide tools to let the site owner remove content and members who can cause legal issues," he says. It might not be a full-blown battle between the young guns and the social media giants yet, but the Davids are readying for the good fight.