Free Social Media Sites
Social media is a place where people can share their lives with each other through pictures, videos, and much more. These platforms have evolved into a way that allows people to express themselves and keep in touch with friends and family worldwide. There are over a dozen free social media sites today to choose from, but they don’t all offer the same level of privacy.
One of the most well-known and popular sites is Facebook. Founded in 2004, it has over 2.8 billion monthly users worldwide and is worth $933 billion. Since its launch, nearly 70% of Americans have used the platform. The only other site with such popularity is YouTube, a video-sharing site owned by Google that over 81% of adults use.
Facebook is a free social site for users ages 13 and older. It’s easy to see the appeal and why it has so many users, but many people have concerns about privacy issues. Facebook started with strong privacy policies, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the board later changed settings in 2010.
Privacy settings can be confusing, making them a challenge to navigate. It isn’t always easy to control who sees what you post, even with all the privacy options. Facebook sold personal information to companies affecting over 87 million users in the Cambridge Analytica scandal of 2018.
Another free social site people use is Twitter. It was founded in 2006 and is one of the top platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. It allows users ages 13 and older to create an account, which can be public or private.
Over 187 million people use Twitter daily. Like Facebook, Twitter also has privacy issues. In 2012, a social engineering attack on two employees allowed the hacker to get administrative access and see highly sensitive messages.
In 2010, Kevin Systrom started Instagram in California with 13 employees. Facebook purchased it in 2012 for $1 billion because of its growing popularity among social media users. They continue to grow and have over 2 billion monthly active users as of 2021.
Instagram was created to share visual stories, ideas, and opinions with friends and family online. The platform’s base is mainly under 21. However, nearly 90% of Instagram users are outside of the U.S. Although it’s easy to share photos on the site, its privacy policy isn’t as strong as Facebook. In 2014, Instagram updated its privacy policy, selling user data without a paid subscription.
TikTok
In 2016, Chinese internet company ByteDance launched TikTok, later known as Douyin. It’s a multimedia mobile app that allows users to post 15-second videos and share them with people worldwide. In 2020, the app surpassed 2 billion global downloads, surpassing all other platforms, including Facebook, WhatsApp, Zoom, Snapchat, and Instagram.
As of 2021, the video-sharing site is worth $50 billion. The creator and former CEO, Zhang Yiming, a 38-year-old software designer, has a net worth of $44 billion, stepped down in May 2021.
TikTok has made a name for itself quickly with its rise in popularity. It has over 690 million global active users, and nearly 70% are under age 29. One reason for this is its large teen audience, which is rare to see on social media sites. Because of its growing popularity with younger consumers, the platform continues to market itself towards boys and girls ages 13 to 21. However, the venue shows that’s changing, so more advertisers are flocking to the forum.
Advertisers are growing on the site with short videos to various market products for tweens and teens. While users enjoy fewer ads and sponsored content, this growing trend won’t slow down. Soon, TikTok users will experience the same frustrations as consumers on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
YouTube
The video platform YouTube is owned by Google and continues to be one of the most popular social media sites. It was launched in 2006, and the video-sharing app has become an online space for people to share digital content with family and friends worldwide.
The site grew in popularity quickly because of its user-generated content and creating videos. Its founders, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, former PayPal employees, created the site when video-sharing wasn’t popular yet. The founders capitalized on this opportunity to grow their audience online, and today it’s one of the most popular social media sites.
Today, it has over four billion hours of video, with an estimated rate of 500 hours of content added every minute.
Google purchased YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion. The site is still the go-to place for people talking about videos and providing creative content online. As of 2021, it’s worth about 500 billion dollars for its parent company, Alphabet (Google).
However, it’s also a multi-billion dollar advertising powerhouse for small brands, startups, entrepreneurs, and top industry leaders. From celebrities and politicians to everyday internet users, everyone has a YouTube channel.
If you’re lucky enough to make viral videos, you can have a slice of the earnings from the platform. But for most consumers that only watch music, interviews, TV show clips, and other free videos on the site, you’re forced to watch advertisements and don’t get a kickback from the company for your time.
While the site is excellent for advertising and leaving comments for your favorite artist, you can’t even watch a 60-second video without advertisements.
Profit Taking Vs. Profit-Sharing
All the platforms making billions off of users every year take but never give. You have a free service that takes your data, sells your information, forces you to see advertisements, and takes home all the profits. Facebook, now Meta, makes 98% of all revenue from ads on its two platforms.
If you want to use social media but don’t want to be taken advantage of, check out Breakout. The platform differs from other sites in several ways. Most importantly, they won’t use you to make a buck and leave you high and dry. Breakout lets users retain 100% of their data.
Only users can decide when and what data they want to sell. When users are ready to monetize that data, they simply connect their app account to our Market Exchange which bundles the data and prepares it for sale. Once it’s bundled, the user will receive bids on that data, and they can choose to accept the bid and cash out or they can hold on to it until they receive higher bids.
This benefit means the users make money rather than a few select executives or only an exclusive group of shareholders. Whether you share your story, points, or data, Breakout shares with you something no other social media platform does.
The Breakout app is available on the Apple Store and on Google Play.
