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‘Open Source And Ethical’ TikTok, WhatsApp And Instagram Alternatives Could Transform Social Media (www.forbes.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[–] [email protected] 73 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (9 children)

One thing we need to mention is funding.

While BlueSky may benefit from venture capital, free (as in beer) open source projects where user data is not commercially exploited for revenue do not have the same benefit. They rely a LOT on donations for running the infrastructure and for the hours and hard work that people are putting in.

[–] Sl00k 20 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

I know ads are very hated here, but I wouldn't be against an ad at a reasonable cadence to increase sustainability. Then create a pro version that gets rid of ads that's like $2-5 a month or $30 a year. The real problem is the exploitation of this system like Reddit/Insta feeding an ad every other post. Or Twitter charging nearly $13 a month for a check mark.

The sync app got so much hate for having ads during the original migration, but a lot of us here are devs and we should definitely get paid for our effort and be able to maintain our infrastructure without our of pocket money.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Agreed.

However these ads need to be curated as well. This is the other thing that makes ads unbearable, is that a lot of them are just blatant scams.

I have learnt about proton and tuxedo from ads as well, which i use both.

[–] Sl00k 3 points 3 weeks ago

I agree to an extent, I'm tired of reddit spamming me with ads for Database management systems while I'm on vacation 🤣

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