Social media has become a monstrously useful piece of modern life. Everyone tweets their food, experiences, precious moments, crazy ideas, and more.
Unfortunately some social media providers have grown into something much more than a platform for sharing and collaboration. Facebook has grown into a
machine that exploits users by hoarding data. Your personal information is sold to the highest bidder after it's used to target you with
advertisements that an algorithm deduces you to be likely to bite on or fall for.
Outside of the exploitation of its users, Facebook has become a place where everyone can get in and your personal information, opinions, and created content
are not private by default. Private investigators, your ex, employers, and creeps in general can easily find out a lot about you even if your Facebook profile
is not public. Search engines also crawl large social media sites so that your information can be returned by a search.
Social Omaha is an alternative for folks in Eastern Nebraska and Western Iowa. There will be no search engine indexing. There will be no data collection and sale.
The content you create will not live forever in the wayback machine.
I founded this website because I believe that social networking can work in a better way when it's run like a ma & pop shop.
I want to promote a tighter community locally that does not allow for the grabbing hands and exploitative methods of international corporate advertising.
Social Omaha will not log your data. Advertising by companies, organizations, and individuals that are not local to Eastern Nebraska and Western Iowa will not be allowed.
There will not be logs kept of your habits, tendencies, and behaviors for use in determining which advertisements to present to you.
If there is ever any advertising on Social Omaha, it will be for the promotion of local businesses, artists, events, and individuals who make our
communities great.
I hope to inspire others to create their own regional social networks, each with their own unique look and feel.
As of July 25, 2016, Social Omaha has one month of server time. The site should be available for users to join by August 1, 2016. Most of August 2016 will be
plenty of time to gauge the desire for Social Omaha to exist.
Update
Social Omaha received many great words of encouragement but no actual support beyond two people who participated. Thus, the plug was pulled.