- Tech leaders, including an early investor in Facebook, launch a $30 million campaign for independent social media.
- Free Our Feeds aims to counter billionaire control with the open source AT Protocol.
- The campaign is led by executives from Mozilla, the Social Web Foundation and other technology nonprofits.
Days after Meta announced controversial changes to its content moderation policies, a group of prominent tech leaders and nonprofit executives launched an ambitious $30 million campaign to build a social media ecosystem free of “billionaire control.”
The initiative, called Free Our Feeds, aims to create independent infrastructure around the AT Protocol, an open source technology that powers the Bluesky social network and allows anyone to build their own social media apps, similar to how they allow open web protocols. anyone who builds websites.
The project comes at a critical time when traditional social platforms are facing intense scrutiny over their centralized ownership and control.
“For the first time, we have a clear path to secure the future of social media as a tool for connection, creativity and joy,” said Nabiha Syed, Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation and one of nine trustees overseeing the project. statement. “But it will take community-driven resources and independent infrastructure to ensure it remains free from the pressures of venture capital and billionaire capture.”
The campaign’s immediate goal is to raise $4 million as part of a larger $30 million three-year effort. The funds will be used to establish a public interest foundation supporting the AT Protocol and to build independent infrastructure including a second “relay” system. Broadcaster is effectively a backup index of all content on the network that ensures developers and users can access posts even if Bluesky restricts access to its data. The capital will also be used to fund developers to create new applications on the protocol.
At press time, the campaign had raised nearly $18,000 from 273 donors on GoFundMe.
According to Syed, one of the main goals of the Foundation is to operate the AT Protocol infrastructure independently of Bluesky.
“The greater the number of stakeholders that build on the AT Protocol, the more leverage they have against Bluesky or any other large company involved in the network,” she told Business Insider. “The Foundation will operate the AT Protocol infrastructure independently of Bluesky to ensure there is always an alternative.”
Roger McNamee, an early Facebook investor turned tech critic who is backing the initiative, told BI that the project comes at a time when users are increasingly frustrated with existing platforms.
“We’re in a world now where every new startup is either crypto or AI,” McNamee said. “Show me something that can make the world a better place. If it works, it will make the world a much better place.”
Over the past few months, Bluesky has seen explosive growth. BI reported last week that the company is in the final stages of raising new funding led by Bain Capital Ventures that would value it at around $700 million. The platform reached nearly 26 million users by the end of 2024, with nearly half of those joining in the last six weeks of the year after Donald Trump’s election victory.
While Bluesky has positioned itself as an alternative to X, supporters of Free Our Feeds argue that even Bluesky’s venture capital-backed structure could eventually face similar pressures as other trading platforms.
“Bluesky is built on values we share, by people we admire. However, the founders are not companies,” the project’s FAQ says. “They will be under the same pressure that all businesses face to maximize the return to their investors.”
The campaign’s nine trustees include executives from Mozilla, the Social Web Foundation and other technology nonprofits. Development Gateway, an American non-profit organization, will hold the funds raised through the crowdfunding campaign.
The timing of the announcement comes just as Meta significantly scaled back its fact-checking program and as X continues to struggle with the exodus of advertisers under Musk’s leadership. Supporters of the initiative argue that these recent developments highlight the dangers of concentrated ownership of social platforms.
“It’s been a very long time since people in Silicon Valley actually solved a problem that existed,” McNamee noted, arguing that the project represents a rare opportunity to address fundamental issues with how they’re structured. and checking social media platforms.
The foundation aims to be operational by the end of 2025. While ambitious in scope, the project’s backers acknowledge the challenges ahead, but argue that recent events on major platforms have created an opening for fundamental changes in the way social media works.
“Centralized ownership of platforms — our digital public square — leads to an ever-changing, uncertain digital environment in which people can lose their digital public square and livelihoods to the decision of a single billionaire,” Syed said. .
“We can do better. The Internet doesn’t need to be like this, and if we work together, it won’t be.”
