Gossip

You really can’t fault anyone for jumping ship from Twitter after Elon Musk. It was inevitable that some changes were to come about, yet Elon’s way of handling everything was unpopular to say the least. Alternatives do exist thankfully, but it’s no surprise that they’re hardly that popular, especially with respect to Twitter...or X, as Elon willed it.

Perhaps you’ve already heard of Nostr. It’s a viable alternative which stresses the concept of decentralization: user control and internet freedom above all. Gossip is a client for the Nostr protocol that lets users browse their favorite relays, chat with their followers, and enjoy all the platform has to offer from their desktop.

If you find working with Nostr a little daunting, it’s worth saying that the client works well to make it more accessible for us all. There are lots of terms you may not be familiar with, such as relays, identities, and configuring everything to normal parameters: there’s a Help page that greets you on first boot, which can clear up any confusions about using the app.

Setting up an account takes no time and all, and there isn’t really a setup process aside from looking up the relays you wish to partake in, then populating your feed with them. You’ll have to look up those relays on the web yourself.

Another core part of using the platform is following other users. Once again, you’ll have to look up those users on the web yourself: there are plenty of resources where popular Twitter users have shared their addresses.

After all of that, it’s time to start interacting with the community and making a name for yourself. Of course, you can also just limit yourself to lurking to see what others are up to.

A cool thing about configuring relays is that you can set permissions individually. You can essentially connect to as many relays as you like and configure each of them to your preferences: Read, Inbox, Discover, Write, Outbox, and Advertise permissions can be tweaked as you see fit for each entry.

Though admittedly featuring a much narrower userbase than Twitter, Nostr is a protocol to keep an eye on. Gossip is an admirable effort to more readily provide users with the necessary tools to connect to the protocol, and I'd say it does a pretty good job at it. If a decentralized social platform is what you're after, trying this out wouldn't be a bad idea.