Facebook

This company is absolute trash. They sadly provide a decent way to keep in touch and share your life with your friends, especially if you move around a lot. They also provide 2 chat services, Messenger and Whatsapp, which have, in some parts of the world, taken over all modes of communication from calls and texts. They've become a tool that everyone from grandma to the family dog utilizes. Conversations in Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger are a lot more private and intimate compared to what is put on your Facebook wall. Facebook sells this data to the highest bidder, who uses this information to sell you different useless products or worse, useless ideas.

Alternatives for Facebook as a social media service:

• diaspora*
• GNU Social

For Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp:

• Signal
  • Developed by the Signal Foundation and Signal Messenger LLC
  • As seamless as WhatsApp, can easily be used as an alternative
  • Handles SMS to people who do not have a Signal Account
  • FOSS
• XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol)
  • Was called Jabber and is based on XML
  • You can self host it
  • If you used WhatsApp or Google Talk (not Hangouts or chat which were slower and sucked!) you have used XMPP as they were built off XMPP
  • Open Standards and has different extensions that can extend the base features of XMPP made by XSF
  • FOSS
• Matrix
  • Developed by the Matrix Foundation
  • You use a number of clients to access it with the most feature-full being Element (previously called Riot.im), which is made by the Matrix Team via their company Element (previously called New Vector)
  • You can self host a federated server and talk to people on Matrix or sign up on the official Matrix.org server or join a number of existing servers listed here
  • You can use it to communicate with people on other services (like Signal, WhatsApp, Hangouts, Facebook messenger, SMS, etc.) using Bridges
  • Slightly more technical as you have to deal with your encryption keys yourself by setting up the built-in backup system. It is simple, but it is an extra step for people who just want to install, create account, and use without a second thought. Signal is better for those kinds of people, for now. Matrix and its clients are rapidly growing and over the past year have become easier to use
  • FOSS