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.

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Link to the Kickstarter

  • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
    372·
    2 days ago

    “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.”

      • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.worldEnglish
        16·
        2 days ago

        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.

        • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
          61·
          2 days ago

          Yeah… But to them, why should they deal with one difficult customer when they have a dozen more that are easier to work with?

          • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.worldEnglish
            7·
            2 days ago

            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.