Location, age, generation, gender, language, education level, area of study, school, ethnicity, salary, type of housing and tenure, house value, location composition, distance relations, job changes, appointments, marriages, paternity, car brand and age, operating system, email service, browser, credit card type …
These examples are a small sample of the 98 fields that, according to a survey by The Washington Post, are part of the privacy fractions that Facebook takes from our user accounts. Does it bother you? Not alone.
The solution is a change, there is life beyond Facebook. They are small rivals, in most cases they are still developing, but they have one thing that Zuckerberg’s social network lacks: zero interest in your data.
Mastodon
This space receives – while these lines are written – 124,753 users who have published 4,233,077 states so far. Although it is a grain of sand in the universe of 2 billion active users per month on Facebook it has its advantages.
Mastodon inhabitants can control who sees their text messages, photos or videos, which, by the way, maintain chronological order and will not appear mixed with advertising similar to their latest searches. In addition, it includes spoiler alerts.
Scuttlebutt
“A great social network with many good people that no company can control and that also works offline.” That’s how the Scuttlebutt is presented.
To enter this space, you only need to install Patchwork and sign up. Each user can contact those who are connected to a local network, such as the Wi-Fi of a café, or can connect remotely to people through pubs, servers that Scuttlebutt compares to bars.
Because? The user can log in to be with his friends, but can log out whenever he wants. And you don’t need to be registered if you just want to chat with your local contacts.
In addition, if you run out of Internet access, the entire network will be stored in a folder on your computer, so you can surf whenever you want. Private messages on Scuttlebutt are encrypted from end to end and when you block someone, it disappears completely: you don’t need to see your posts, even if your other friends share them.
Ricochet
If Facebook isn’t your thing, try Ricochet, where you can share instant and absolutely private messages. In the middle of the conversation, there are no servers that anyone can monitor, censor or hack. It uses the Tor network, in which meeting points between anonymous users can be established. Your contact list will never leave your computer and all messages will be encrypted.
Agorakit
Agorakit is a kind of forum and a collaborative work tool. The downside is that it pays for privacy. This network offers the possibility to create open or closed groups, allows to establish collaborative calendars and folders with shared documents in the Google style and includes the option to geolocate groups, people or events.
Signal
If you want to take the conversation to your phone, try Signal, Edward Snowden’s favorite messaging app: text, image, voice, video and encrypted documents from end to end, from head to toe and free.
All data downloaded to Signal belongs to the phone that contains it. In addition, you can set a disappearance interval for your conversations, so that messages sent are deleted from time to time for all users who participate.
