The Twitter Alternatives, Ranked

On Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, and others.

If you’ve been watching the downfall of Twitter over the past year or so, you’ve probably been tempted to try one of the many Twitter alternatives. Every few weeks, a new change to Twitter made by Elon Musk has been somebody’s “last straw”; the introduction of $8/month Verification badges through Twitter Blue, the removal of 2FA for those who aren’t Twitter Blue subscribers, the re-platforming of alt-right accounts, and the monetization of neo-Nazi influencers all resulted in an explosion of site traffic to Bluesky, Mastodon, and other microblogging platforms. Most recently, the addition of a 600-post limit for non-Blue users prompted Meta to release a version of their own Twitter competitor, Threads, to the public earlier than expected, having noticed the power vacuum. In a similar timeframe, the Black-owned competitor Spill also released, now being posited as “the new Black Twitter”. In the conservative Internet, Truth Social has been around for a while, courting those of us who have at least 3 pieces of “Trump 2020” merchandise in their homes.

What this means is that there are at least four New Twitters out there. And that I’m currently processing what that means for the Internet and society as a whole. This week, I thought I would share my thoughts on these new apps, and give each a number rating out of 10.