Prominent global tech entrepreneurs are rallying behind the ‘Free Our Feeds’ campaign, seeking to shield Bluesky’s core tech, the AT Protocol, from billionaire control. The goal is an open, democratized social media ecosystem disentangled from the control of singular entities.
The campaign arrives in the wake of Meta’s recent announcement to ease its content regulation and fact-checking policies. Given Mark Zuckerberg’s crucial role in Meta, these changes raise the concern for the need for platforms independent of singular influence. The campaign also dovetails with Bluesky’s recent user influx, most of whom migrated from X (formerly Twitter), a platform used by Elon Musk for political causes.
‘Free Our Feeds’ has garnered the support of industry dignitaries like actor Mark Ruffalo, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and writer Cory Doctorow, amongst others. The initiative aspires to establish an infrastructure supporting interoperable social networks.
Independent technologist Robin Berjon, one of the campaign’s nine custodians, compared digital infrastructure to roads; if one to two billionaires owned everything, there’d be chaos. The objective is to ensure this digital infrastructure, inherently a public good, stands in the public interest.
While Berjon acknowledges the shared values between the campaign and Bluesky, he is aware of the pressures which could lead Bluesky under a billionaire’s influence. Free Our Feeds has initiated a $30 million fundraising drive, with an immediate aim of $4 million to build independent infrastructure.
Berjon emphasized that their goal is to enable the AT Protocol remain open and not merely concentrated on Bluesky. The funds raised would be directed towards supporting new applications and maintaining an active player in this field. Berjon envisages the creation of different types of social apps using the AT Protocol.
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