Free Our Feeds wants to build a social media ecosystem ‘proof of billionaire influence’

Technology advocates and celebrities support Launch our free feedsa campaign designed to “save social media from arresting billionaires.” The project aims to Raised $30 million Over three years to support the development of the social media ecosystem powered by the AT Protocol, or the decentralized network that powers Bluesky.

The funds raised will go toward launching a public benefit foundation to support the project, creating an “independently hosted infrastructure” that will allow Bluesky users, developers, and researchers to access published content and data “regardless of what the company decides to do in the future.”

Despite these efforts, Free Our Feeds believes that “social infrastructure that works for the public good cannot be governed by a private social media company” forever.

“Bluesky’s core technology, the AT protocol, could provide a new path to the social network. The company continues to be backed by venture capital,” said Sherif El-Sayed Ali, executive director of the Future of Technology Institute, in a statement. “This important initiative aims to protect “Bluesky’s core technology and set it on an independent path, so that the future of social media can be freed from the whims of any corporation or group of billionaires.”

Free Our Feeds will be led by nine trustees – including Nabiha Sayed and Mark Surman of the Mozilla Foundation – who will oversee “key governance decisions” for the project.

Mastodon is also moving away from the sole proprietorship model used by social media platforms like Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Elon Musk’s X. On Monday, Mastodon CEO Eugene Rushko announced It will transfer ownership of the decentralized social network to a non-profit organization because “Mastodon should not be owned or controlled by a single individual.”

Correction January 13: An earlier version of the article incorrectly attributed a quote to Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales due to an error from Free Our Feeds. Quote from Sherif Al-Sayed Ali.