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

  • Serinus@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    No mention of Lemmy. Hardly a mention of Mastodon. The leading image is all the oligarch apps. I’m not impressed.

    • Desert Hermit@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      It’s Forbes - if they don’t use an image in the thumbnail of a thing people know, they might as well not use anything. It’s normie-facing.

    • slax@sh.itjust.works
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      17 hours ago

      Hitching on the wagon that Pixelfed is leading is good. There’s a lot of talk even from those who don’t care about FOSS, or Fediverse projects. Let’s give some credit and let things slide so the whole can succeed.

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        This right here.

        Look at the objective. The objective is to kill corporate sponsered social media. Well what better way to do that then by normalizing non corporate social media in the minds of the masses?

      • Serinus@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        Yeah, I don’t mind Pixelfed getting attention at all. It’s just that I don’t trust Forbes, and this article seems to want to muddy the waters.