CounterSocial

I want to apologize about last week’s post. Apparently, on Wednesday, Hive Social shut down its servers. We aren’t the only ones looking for an alternative to Twitter. Based on the number of reads on my Twitter blog entry, people are looking everywhere.

I searched for more alternatives, but Post. is in beta and has a waitlist. Since I hadn’t heard much about the app (except that newshound hubby loves it), it might not be great for authors for marketing.

I came across CounterSocial and found it fun and different.

Check it out.

CounterSocial is a social media app that purports no ads, trolls, or fake news. In fact, on their first screen, you can scroll down to view the protections to keep you safe from nonsense. There’s a Deepfake detector, Botsentienel integration (to keep out “foreign influence operations”), identity breach alerts, and fact-layer integration (to detect political bias). Why bring this up? Because the foundation of the app is to prevent the pitfalls of other social media apps. The software designer wanted to cut through and eliminate some of the traps of apps like Twitter.

CounterSocial is easy to sign up for. Create a username and enter an email and password. Once you verify your email, the CounterSocial screen will appear. It looks like TweetDeck with columns of topics and users. My account started with a notification column, one for friends, and one called Community Firehouse. There are also news feeds around the columns. Mine had MSNBC across the top with a video box at the bottom left. Channels included CBS, ABC, BBC, Weather, Al Jazeera, and Bloomberg.

Adding content is similar to Twitter. Users have 500 characters to create a post. Options include emojis, media, polls, and a sanitizer (I’m totally looking into that one). New account posts start fully public. I wrote a “I’m new” post and received many welcoming responses. Responding to other people’s posts is also similar, with a star for like, reply, and repost. On the right, you see the lists of your current columns, plus some other options. You can change your settings, log out, see blocks, mutes, etc. Add to your follow list by using the search option on the first left column under the Sentiment monitor. Put in either a name, topic, or hashtag to find people and conversations.

Under your name on the left column is an option to change your profile. This will let you change the settings on your account. You can add pictures, bio, and preferred hashtags. Under Preferences, you can change your account to private or followers only. It also has a handy feature here called Ostrich mode. With this mode, you can tone down your screen to remove some distractors. The news will disappear as well as the graphs about the site. Under Followers, there is a list of followers and those you follow.

In the right corner, the page appears folded over. Click the fold to go to CounterRealms. This is another virtual space where users can create rooms for social interaction. You can join a random room or create your own. It’s a 3D virtual space. Create an avatar and explore the virtual space, chat with others, and share. Navigation can be done with either the WADS keys (like ancient video games LOL), or you can use VR goggles. To create your own room, you must upgrade to a $5-a-month paid account.

This app is a user-funded. It relies on users to help support it with donations and monthly fees. On the of the main screen is a chart of money needed to maintain the site for the month.

I hope some of these alternatives will work for our authors. I think Twitter will continue to change going forward. Best practice is to use an app that actually sells your books.