Rebel Tech AllianceFacebook alternatives
Facebook was great at the start, but now it's a seething mass of ads and data harvesting. It is run by Meta, whose busines model relies on datarape. Meta is owned by Mark Zuckerberg, who has recently reverted to type: a creepy misoginist who made an app to rate the fuckability of girls at his college.
The main reason to get away from big tech (billionaire owned) social media is that the content you are served is decided by an algorithm. And how that algorithm works (e.g. skewed towards more shocking, more extreme, less true, more outrageous) is at the whim of the owner of the platform. And that owner is Zuckerberg 🤮
You are also open to manipulation, and Facebook has proved to be the best place for this. Remember Cambridge Analytica?. Nobody is immune. The only way out is to avoid the platform altogether. We've added instructions on how to get your photos and other data out of Facebook at the bottom of this page.
The solution is separate decentralised apps, not an all-in-one platform.
To avoid algorithmic and network-effect lock-in, split up the features you find Facebook useful for and move to decentralised, open source alternatives to stitch together the feature set.
You will need to look at your contacts in Facebook and find out other ways to contact the most important of them. Then delete your account.
Another consideration is: do you really need to be connected to two billion people? If you start thinking in terms of quality over quantity, then Facebook looks less necessary. You can get all your friends using Pixelfed easily and post your pictures so just they see them.
Groups
We do acknowledge that Facebook Groups are difficult to get away from, since so many clubs and teams use them to organise. It is up to you to put pressure on that club to use a non-Big Tech alternative such as Spond.
Marketplace
Likewise we acknowledge that Facebook Marketplace is useful. However we have found that you can easily live without it, using alternatives such as eBay and Vinted.
| App name | Protocol | Facebook Feature | # users start of 2025 approx | Year started | Country of Origin | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pixelfed | ActivityPub | Photo albums | 720,000 | 2018 | Canada (but decentralised) | Pixelfed.org |
| Spond | n/a | Groups | 4 million | 2012 | Norway | Spond.com |
| Signal | n/a | Groups | 85 million | 2019 | USA | Get Signal |
| eBay | n/a | Marketplace | 135 million | 2019 | USA | eBay UK |
| Vinted | n/a | Marketplace | 4 million | 2019 | Lithuania | Vinted UK |
| ActivityPub | News Feed | 4 million | 2019 | USA | Flipboard.com | |
| Newsblur | RSS | News Feed | 4 million | 2009 | USA | Newsblur |
| Feeder | RSS | News Feed | Android only | 2014 | Sweden | Feeder (Play Store) |
| Feedly | RSS | News Feed | 18 million | 2008 | USA | Feedly.com |
| Friendica | ActivityPub | All | 3,000 | 2010 | Australia | Friendi.ca |
| Minds | ActivityPub | All | 5 million | 2011 | USA | Minds.com |
RTA's choice
We use a combination of these and more. We're particularly fond of Feeder as it is open source and 100% private. And Signal, of course, is the gold standard of encryption.
The point, however, is to split Facebook's functions into different apps. Just don't use Facebook!
A note about RSS
It might be old school but it's ad free, tracker free, auto updates, and is an excellent way to get your news. Most sites have an RSS feed. Find the URL for it and then put that into your RSS reader.
Getting your photos and data out of Facebook
You'll want to get photos and contacts out of Facebook before you delete your account. Here's how to do that:
- Log in to your FB account
- Go to Settings
- Navigate to "Your Facebook Information"
- Select "Download your information"
- Choose the data range (incl. specific photo albums) and media quality
- Download the file
Now you have freed your photos from Facebook's lock-in, you can upload them to an alternative service e.g. from our File storage & backup list.