We are expanding our digital presence! To reduce our reliance on Facebook and offer you more privacy-focused alternatives, we are now testing information feeds on Signal, Telegram, and Mastodon.
We want to let you choose the platform that suits you best. Here is how they work and where to find us.
📢 TELEGRAM (Recommended for News)
Our Telegram channel is the closest alternative to our Facebook page. It acts as a public broadcast where you can easily scroll back and see old posts, videos, and history.
- What it is: A public channel (one-way communication).
- Privacy: No one can see that you are subscribing.
- Join here: https://t.me/heptown / https://web.telegram.org/k/#@heptown
🔒 SIGNAL (Privacy Focused)
For those who prefer Signal, we have created an announcement group. Note: Unlike Telegram, you will not see any posts made before you joined. You will only receive updates moving forward.
⚠️ Important Privacy Setting: In a Signal group, other members can technically see the member list. If you want to keep your phone number private, you must change your settings:
- Go to Settings > Privacy > Phone Number.
- Set “Who can see my number” to Nobody.
- Join here: Click to join HepTown on Signal
🐘 MASTODON (The Social Network)
Mastodon is a decentralized, ad-free social network similar to X (Twitter) but without a central owner, prioritizing user privacy. We have chosen to host our account on mastodon.nu, a reliable, Nordic-focused server hosted within the EU to ensure strict data protection.
- Join here: mastodon.nu/@heptown
What about Course Groups?
For now, our course discussions remain where they are. However, both Signal and Telegram offer excellent features for discussion groups. We are looking into moving specific course chats and community discussions to these platforms in the future if/when we decide to move away from Facebook Groups entirely.
We are also keeping an eye on other community-based alternatives, though we are mindful of not introducing too many new apps with unfamiliar interfaces at once.
See you on the other side!