Twitter alternatives are on the rise after Elon Musk set user limits on the platform. 

What You Need To Know

  • Twitter alternatives are on the rise after Elon Musk set user limits on the platform

  • Since Twitter instituted the change, Spill, an app created by two former Twitter engineers, saw a surge in downloads on Apple's App Store over the Fourth of July weekend
  • Spill wants to create a safe space for marginalized communities, especially Black and LGBTQ+ users

  • While other apps have yet to pledge to have an inclusive app, Bluesky, Threads and Mastodon are rising in popularity as users look for a new home

Musk's attempt to curb so-called "extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation," which involved temporarily limiting how many posts users could read, was the final blow. 

Since Twitter instituted the change, Spill, an app created by two former Twitter engineers, saw a surge in downloads on Apple's App Store over the Fourth of July weekend. 

The app, dubbed a safe place for Black Twitter, is growing in popularity, with celebrities like Questlove telling Twitter users to come over to Spill.

According to the Network Contagion Research Institute, Twitter saw nearly a 500% increase in the use of the n-word in the 12-hour window immediately following the shift of ownership to Musk.

Musk's failure to censor hate speech drew a rebuke from Israel's director of the Digital Diplomacy Bureau, David Saranga, who said in a statement on Twitter that the platform "does nothing to address this problem."

Spill wants to create a safe space for marginalized communities, especially Black and LGBTQ+ users. 

Spill told Spectrum News that it has grown in three days from 130,000 new users (and counting), adding that music star Lizzo will soon have an invitation code after she took to Twitter to ask for one. 

While other apps have yet to pledge to have an inclusive environment, other social media networks like Bluesky, Threads and Mastodon are rising in popularity as users look for a new home.

Threads is Meta's highly anticipated alternative to Twitter and is expected to launch on Thursday with capacity to like, share, post and repost content. This will allow users to keep their usernames and follow the same accounts on Threads.

Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, founded the invite-only app called Bluesky in 2019. It attracted the attention of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Chrissy Teigen. 

The benefit of Bluesky is that it grants users greater control over their data and the content they view. And from a visual standpoint, it bears a striking resemblance to Twitter and has many of the same features. However, it lacks direct messaging, live streams and video support.

The nonprofit Mastodon, introduced in 2016, currently has over 12 million users. It is one of the older Twitter alternatives with users "tooting" instead of "tweeting." The founder Eugene Rochko said it also saw a surge in 294,000 active users over the holiday weekend.