What’s the alternative
While there are many alternatives to X many of these are not much ‘better’. Instagram, Facebook and Threads are all owned by the social media giant Meta a company that itself allowed it’s own platforms to fuel hate that lead a Genocide, is no stranger to election interference and whose algorithms have been increasingly blamed for amplifying misinformation and political polarization.
Mastodon
Mastodon is a popular decentralized social network, often seen as a Twitter/X alternative, but is built on a network of independent, community-run servers (instances) rather than one central company, allowing for more user control, privacy, and a focus on specific interests.
Mastodon is developed by Mastodon gGmbH, a German non-profit entity and has been significantly funded by the European Union through its Next Generation Internet (NGI) program a part of Horizon Europe.
Mastodon.ie
While there are thousands of instances the main Irish one is Mastodon.ie, this is run by an Irish non-profit company Mastodaoine CLG and maintained and moderated by volunteers.
You can join for free, and as there is no advertisements server costs are paid by donations. If you fancy helping out you can check out the funding page.