“Save the millionaire networks”: the Free Our Feeds movement wants a social ecosystem free from the control of the rich

Jane Anderson
Jane Anderson
“Save the millionaire networks”: the Free Our Feeds movement wants a social ecosystem free from the control of the rich

“Get the rich out of our networks” could well be the slogan of Free Our Feeds, a social movement that aspires to build an ecosystem of social media free from the influence of billionaires like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. They have launched a campaign with the ambition of raising $30 million in three years to develop a social ecosystem based on AT Protocolwhich is, for example, behind the decentralization of Bluesky.

The movement is promoted by a group of managers who defend open codes and decentralization, as Mark Surman and Nabiha Syed, President and CEO respectively of the Mozilla Foundation; Mallory Knodel, Executive Director of the Social Web Foundation; or Deepti Doshi, Co-Director of New_ Public.

The trigger for the movement was the change in moderation policy in Meta

Their desire is to develop a type of social network in which users have more voice and the ability to control and choose. One of the triggers for the movement was the change in Meta policy, which has chosen to eliminate independent content verification to replace it with a community notes system, like the one X -formerly Twitter- has.

However, its mission becomes more relevant in a context in which Elon Musk He has been instrumental in the re-election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, advocating for his campaign and donating funds. The businessman has even been named head of the administration’s new Department of Government Efficiency. In addition, Barron Trump, son of Donald Trump, has also been key in capturing young votes for his father’s campaign through TikTok, a social network that remains active in the United States as a result of Trump’s commitment to issuing an executive order. to extend the period granted to the company to sell its business in the American country.

We want to create a complete ecosystem of interconnected applications and different companies that take people’s interests into account. Free Our Feeds will build a new, independent foundation to help make that happen“, they explain from the movement. “Our vision offers a path to an open and healthy social media ecosystem that cannot be controlled by any one company or billionaire.”.

They claim to be a group of Twitter users who loved the platform, but who have seen the decline of your feeds as a result of one person taking control of what was a “global public square” and has used it for his own political and economic objectives.We cannot allow this to happen again. We are determined to free social media from the control of billionaires. We know it will require three things: community, money and control”, they explain.

A fundraising campaign to free social networks

To achieve this, they take as a reference what was achieved by Bluesky, created by Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter. But they distance themselves from it due to its nature as a commercial company. The intention, so that all people can benefit, is create a public interest foundation that serves as a basis to finance the project, build an independent infrastructure to support these new platforms and support developers in creating open protocol social applications.

The ultimate goal of the campaign is to raise 30 million dollars in 3 yearsbut in the first phase they are focusing their efforts on raising four million dollars to launch the foundation. For this they have created a donation campaign on the platform GoFundMe which, at the time of publishing this news, has raised close to $70,000. The intention would be to launch the foundation at the end of this year.

“Free Our Feeds” also has the support of prominent figures in different fields, such as the actor Mark Ruffalo, the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales; Rosie Boycott, member of the British parliament; or Alexandra Geese, member of the European parliament.

Free Our Feeds It is understood as the reaction of the technology industry to the recent movements in the social media ecosystem, and that happens in parallel, among other things, to the migration of users from X to platforms such as the aforementioned Bluesky or Mastodon.

What’s more, it has also chosen to move away from the sole ownership model used by companies like Meta or X. Eugen Rochko, CEO of Mastodonrecently announced that it will transfer ownership of the decentralized social network to a non-profit organization, noting that “Mastodon should not be owned or controlled by a single individual.”

More info.: Free Our Feeds