At a time when established social media platforms are facing criticism and turbulence — from TikTok’s temporary shutdown to Meta’s withdrawal from fact-checking and growing criticism over political content moderation — a new approach to social media is gaining some attention.
“Help us put control back into the hands of the people!” declares Canadian developer Daniel Supernault, whose open-source platforms aim to provide privacy-focused alternatives to mainstream social media.
Supernault’s Kickstarter campaign, launched on Jan. 24, has already exceeded its initial CA$50,000 goal, TechCrunch reports, raising CA$93,022 (approximately US$64,839) as of 11:02 a.m. PT today. The funding will support the development of three platforms within the Fediverse — a decentralized network of interconnected social media services. These platforms include Pixelfed, Loops and Sup, designed as privacy-focused alternatives to Instagram, TikTok and WhatsApp, respectively. Each platform rejects traditional venture capital funding and ad-based revenue models in favor of community-driven development.
One thing we need to mention is funding.
While BlueSky may benefit from venture capital, free (as in beer) open source projects where user data is not commercially exploited for revenue do not have the same benefit. They rely a LOT on donations for running the infrastructure and for the hours and hard work that people are putting in.
Good point. Theoretically surmountable because Wikipedia.
But donors are going to have to be convinced that social media is a social good.
“Mastadon”
While Masturdon was ripe for the picking
WhatsApp ❌
Signal ✅
That’s my initial thought, but what do we know about who owns it?
It’s owned by Brian Acton. The original founder of WhatsApp before it was sold to Meta. I’m yet to hear of controversial stories about him. Unless him being a billionaire irks you, i think it’s fine.
It’s owned by Brian Acton
No, he is a founder and a donor. It’s owned by the Signal Foundation, which is a classic non-profit that seeks funding from lots of sources.
My only issue is having WhatsApp in my circle is a must.
Friends and families are more than happy to text or call. But the numerous contractors and engineers I work with and request their service, to them WhatsApp is a must to send photos of issues or videos of faults.
“Sorry, I don’t have WhatsApp but you can send me those photos or videos on Signal, Matrix, SimpleX, Briar, Wire, Session, Jabber, Threema, or Line.”
Good luck getting anyone to download any of those😂
Yeah but you see the point? They offer us one option. We offer them ten.
“You don’t have any of them installed? Well, I don’t have Whatsapp installed. So one of us is going to have to go out of our way. Why should you assume that’s for me to do, just because everyone else including you behaved like an unthinking herd of sheep?” That’s what I feel like saying, and occasionally do actually say.
It’s a difficult conundrum. Speaking personally, but at this point resisting the Whatsapp fascism has become a stubborn article of faith for me. I won’t do it.
Yeah… But to them, why should they deal with one difficult customer when they have a dozen more that are easier to work with?
My point was about the social scenario, which is a genuine puzzle because most people want to have friends. I’ve lost some over this.
For the business context (this was the subject, true), I find that’s much easier: “F*** off and send an email.” Impossible? Well then that’s one less customer for you. I have lots of experience of doing exactly this. Almost always the email suddenly becomes possible after all.
