- Tech leaders, including an early Facebook investor, launch a $30M 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, Social Web Foundation, and other tech nonprofits.
Days after Meta announced controversial changes to its content moderation policies, a group of prominent technology leaders and nonprofit executives launched an ambitious $30 million campaign to build a social media ecosystem free from “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 applications, similar to how open web protocols let anyone build websites.
The project comes at a critical moment when traditional social platforms are facing intense scrutiny over their concentrated ownership and control.
“For the first time, we have a clear pathway to securing the future of social media as a tool for connection, creativity, and joy,” Nabiha Syed, Executive Director of Mozilla Foundation and one of nine custodians overseeing the project, said in a 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 build independent infrastructure including a second “relay” system. The relay 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 the time of publishing, the campaign had raised nearly $18,000 from 273 donors on GoFundMe.
According to Syed, one of the Foundation’s key goals is to operate the AT Protocol infrastructure independently from Bluesky.
“The greater the number of stakeholders who build on AT Protocol, the more countervailing power they have with regards to Bluesky or any other large company involved in the network,” she told Business Insider. “The Foundation will operate AT Protocol infrastructure independently from Bluesky to ensure that 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 right now where every new startup is either crypto or AI,” McNamee said. “Show me something that might actually make the world a better place. If this works, it’s going to make the world a much better place.”
Over the last 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 joining in the last six weeks of the year following Donald Trump’s election victory.
While Bluesky has positioned itself as an alternative to X, Free Our Feeds’ backers argue that even Bluesky’s venture capital-backed structure could eventually face similar pressures as other commercial platforms.
“Bluesky is built on values we share, by people we admire. However, founders are not companies,” the project’s FAQ states. “They will come under the same pressure all businesses face to maximize return to their investors.”
The campaign’s nine custodians include executives from Mozilla, the Social Web Foundation, and other nonprofit technology organizations. Development Gateway, a US nonprofit organization, will hold 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 advertiser exodus under Musk’s leadership. The initiative’s backers argue that these recent developments highlight the risks of concentrated ownership of social platforms.
“We’ve gone a really 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 social media platforms are structured and controlled.
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 at major platforms have created an opening for fundamental change in how social media operates.
“Centralized ownership of platforms — our digital public square — leads to a constantly shifting, opaque digital environment in which people can lose their digital public square and livelihoods from a single billionaire’s decision,” Syed said.
“We can do better. The internet doesn’t need to be like this, and if we work together, it won’t be.”
