Rebel Tech AllianceInstagram & TikTok alternatives
Since being bought by Meta, Instagram has become full of ads and super creepy. Since it's unencrypted, and owned by one of the most data-hungry companies on the planet, it is terrible for leaking your personal information to Big Tech.
Even worse, when Chinese-owned TikTok took off in 2018 Instagram panicked. They stripped out any safeguarding features of the algorithm, added the Reels feature, and carnage (especially for vulnerable teens) ensued. The rise of Tiktok also coincided with Meta (and Snap) starting to target children to increase 'engagement', i.e. profit.
At the mercy of the algorithm
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. You are open to manipulation and the algorigthm can send you down rabbit holes. In many cases towards death, as the documentary Molly vs The Machines shows. A court case in early 2026 found that Meta know this and do it deliberately for profit.
Addictive
Social media recommendation algorithms, and the user interfaces of the apps, are designed to make them addictive. This has been proved in a court case that found against Meta and Google in early 2026.
The solution is decentralised
To avoid algorithmic lock-in, move to a decentralised, open source alternative from the list below. Decentralised means that there is no central control point that dictates what content you see (unlike X, Instagram, TikTok or Facebook).
Decentralised social networks run on a set of shared format rules called a 'protocol'. The two main decentralised protocols are ActivityPub and ATproto. Apps built on ActivityPub are sometimes referred to as the 'fediverse' because all those apps are 'federated'. This means you can see posts in one app that are posted in another app.
| App name | Protocol (decentralised) | Best Features | # users start of 2025 approx | Year started | Country of Origin | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
.png){kind=tracking} Pixelfed |
ActivityPub | Ad free, privacy friendly, chronological feeds; Stories, Albums, Filters; Federates with Mastodon | 720,000 | 2018 | Canada | Pixelfed.org |
.png) Skylight |
AT Proto | Federates with Bluesky; Tiktok alternative; Control your feed; As with Bluesky they have taken VC funds so buyer beware | unknown | 2025 | USA | Skylight.social |
.jpg) Upscrolled |
n/a (app lock-in) | Founded by a Palastinian citizen; Promises no censorship or shadow-banning; Not decentralised so is a platform lock-in | n/a | 2025 | Australia | Upscrolled.com |
RTA's choice
There's only really one bulletproof choice and that's Pixelfed. It is a fully featured app, open source and decentralised so we recommend it. Being on the ActivityPub protocol it has the advantage of being federated with all the other AP apps like Mastodon, Lemmy, Peertube and Friendica.
How decentralised social media networks work
They are made up of lots of separate 'instances'. These could be though of like hosting servers (like for websites). There is always the original and biggest instance set up by the founders, and then lots of smaller onces set up by various other people. To start with you usually join the 'original' instance, and usually this has a name ending in '.social'.
In Pixelfed's case it is pixelfed.social. Skylight works on the AT Proto protocol, the same one that Bluesky is built on. This means you can sign in with your existing Bluesky handle.