It’s one debacle after another at Twitter these days. Following Elon Musk‘s recent (and somewhat reluctant) acquisition of the social media platform, Twitter has been subject to upcoming controversial changes to its misinformation policies, massive layoffs, and the company trying to run back said massive layoffs. As the company continues to implode under new leadership, you might find yourself seeking out alternative sources of social media.
You could always try Tumblr, which recently rolled back some of its policies on NSFW content. You could even try TikTok, though it doesn’t necessarily provide the same kind of news coverage as other sites might.
Then there’s also Mastodon, which was initially launched in 2016 but received a “stable release” in May 2022. Also, there is Cohost, another best Twitter alternative.
If you’ve never heard of Cohost before but are considering alternatives to Twitter, here’s some quick info about the social media app.
What is Cohost?
Cohost is a new social media platform built from the ground up by a small team of developers and designers who like sharing things on the internet.
Currently, Cohost is an invite-only social media network.
Cohost aims to be a bit simpler than Mastodon, but provides a more robust posting ability. It appears to be building something that doesn’t use advertising, or algorithms to coerce you into seeing things.
The interface is still a little rocky, reminding us of the early days of Twitter, but overall is easy to navigate. It supports markdown, letting you customize your posts to your liking. Alongside this, it lets you indicate whether or not it’s an adult post.
A major problem with Cohost is that there’s no proper search function. The dedication to a lack of algorithm means that it doesn’t feature a trending area. You can search for hashtags to follow, but it won’t surface things to you unless you actively search, or follow people.
If you’re after a one-to-one experience that Twitter brought, this might be the closest you can get in the meantime.
It also will not let you post straight away. In a bid to kill an influx of bots and mallicious users, Cohost has a waiting list before you can post. This might seem counterintuitive, but the time between getting access to the site and the option to post is getting shorter. Also, it means they can easily vet bad actors before they infiltrate the website. That, and save their servers from burning up.
Cohost does allow you to pay a fee to get ‘Cohost Plus‘, which still seems a little thin on offerings outside of helping out the development team keep the lights on.
