Review: MeWe is superior to Facebook in virtually every way
More on MeWe, a new social network: let’s do this
Last week I wrote briefly about a new social network called MeWe. In that quick overview I noted its no advertising/in-app purchases model and its vow to never sell user data. MeWe is very pointedly being launched as an alternative to Facebook, and that alone should pique our interest.
In the past few days I’ve been using MeWe as much as possible to get a feel for its design, features, user experience and general viability as a potential replacement for FB, and am incredibly pleased with what I’ve found.
- MeWe’s design and user experience is superior to Facebook’s. It’s clean, extremely intuitive, and if you’ve grown accustomed to all the clutter associated with having your data monetized – ads, recommended/sponsored posts and the like – you’re going to be struck by the dramatic improvement in the signal:noise ratio. Finding and editing your settings is simpler by far (I still have to Google instructions for FB sometimes), and part of the reason is you don’t need as many settings where privacy is concerned.
- It has all the features you love in Facebook – groups, events, pages and the like. There are already a huge number of interest groups and you can create/manage new ones easily.
- There’s also a chat feature attached to the groups that allows running side conversations. FB doesn’t really have anything like it, and while I haven’t explored it in great detail it seems, at a glance, to be really useful. The one for the Macro Photography group is even livelier than the actual content stream.
In the end, if all other things were equal and I were picking between MeWe and Facebook, it would be the easiest choice ever. Literally the only thing FB has going for it is inertia: we’re all there already and have invested a good bit of energy in its way of organizing our online world.
Of course, this comes with a cost. If you aren’t paying for dinner, you’re on the menu, and we could write volumes on all the ways Facebook has abused its users in recent years (the 2018 list alone is terrifying).
Obviously you can’t replace your entire Facebook life overnight. But MeWe already has millions of users and it’s growing quickly. And there was a time you’d never even heard of Facebook. So sure, it’s incremental.
I’m going to invite all my friends to investigate MeWe, and with a little effort maybe we can help provide the world with an alternative to the most corrosive assault on civil society the Internet has mounted to date. I’m sure MeWe isn’t the answer to all our problems, but right now any step in the right direction is welcomed.
If you decide to give it a try, I’m Doc Wintersmith. Come say hi.
lullaby pit 
I like it, but it lacks a very important feature for me: friend lists.
Not sure what you mean. MeWe has friend lists, so you must be talking about something specific?
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I joined it yesterday, never liked FB.. It was love/hate/love/more hate/deleted sort of thing. Sent you a contact thing as directed, apart from that, still billy-no-mates and lurking there to learn more. Definitely not sending invites to family. 🙂
Just accepted. Howdy.
I say, how American…
Can we do ‘Good day Sir, cup of tea?’ 😉
😀
Hi, not bad,….joined recently, belong to two groups so far. Interesting side group chat feature alongside the group main forum wall interactions.
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I cant seem to add tags,When some one is searching for me how can I be found.I have A group on Mewe and have not got a single member request.Facebook group covering the same group subject thousands of members.I also understand you have to pay a fee for the best part of MeWe .Not interested in paying a fee at this time until I see more interest and activity
You’ve been mislead. There is no fee. You can buy upgraded emoji packs if you want, but I haven’t so far seen any need. If somebody is saying there’s a fee, that person may be carrying water for Facebook.
There are a few little things they need to iron out. For instance, I’d like better preference management on the mobile. But for every issue MeWe has FB has a thousand.
And if you want to build a group, you need to be proactive. First, get some content on there so when show up to look it isn’t an empty room. The visit other groups, look for people with shared interests, and invite them. Once they show up engage them. Consistently. Comment on their posts, strike up conversations, make friends, etc.
Joined MeWe in January 2019. Liked the features that were similar to Facebook without the ads. A little glitchy at times but still was a better alternative to Facebook at the time I joined.
However, after having a community (MeWe’s definition for groups) created and established with over 100 active members, the group simply disappeared. POOF! Gone. All the hours my admin team put in to establishing relationships with our members was taken away in an instance. I made several attempts to get support on the issue over a week’s time with no resolution. As a result, our members thought that we personally removed them from the group without warning. Other members admitted the same had happened to groups they created as well so it wasn’t a one-time fluke.
In conclusion, MeWe is not mature enough to handle the amount of users and activity from its recent growth over the past year so don’t get too comfortable in a community, it could vanish at any time without a trace. I’ve since deleted my account and the app. ~Extremely Disappointed Ex-MeWe Community Owner
Mewe is as fascist as Facebook, if not more. They ban without warning while ignoring bannable offenses slide from reporting clowns. Mewe is a joke and a poor fill for the G+ void. The network needs to be shut down as a fraud and a failed social network flooded by money hungry morons
Hi, I’d appreciate your updating the story at some point. Some of the comments seem to point to problems of group’s disappearing? if true, whats going on, or are they ‘carrying water’ for FB? Thanks.
May be some folks doing just that, but who knows? Do you have some info on those problems being cleared up?