Tech movement ‘Free our Feeds’ wants to kick billionaires out of social media ownership

A group of tech entrepreneurs is looking to raise $30 million (€28.7 million) over the next three years to build a social media ecosystem independent of billionaire control. 

The ‘Free Our Feeds’ campaign wants to create a network of apps around the AT Protocol, the open-source technology behind the Bluesky social media app that lets users seamlessly migrate between accounts. 

According to Marc Faddoul, one of nine technical advisers of Free Our Feeds, the AT Protocol also lets users have “full control over where their veri is located and hosted” and choose from a host of different algorithms that they’d like to see on their feeds.

Bluesky has emerged as one alternative to the platform X, formerly called Twitter, which was purchased by billionaire Elon Musk in 2022.

‘De facto monoply’

Launched publicly for the first time in February 2024, Bluesky amassed over 23 million users by the end of the year, according to the company’s most recent report. 

Currently, only Bluesky operates on the AT protocol, which Faddoul said could lead to a “de facto monopoly”.

“It’s a timely moment to do this because there is… a big transformation upcoming on the social media landscape,” Faddoul said. 

The group wants to raise an immediate $4 million (€3.8 million) and put it towards a new independent non-profit foundation that will develop the ecosystem. 

The other technical advisors of the initiative include former executives from Mozilla, the Social Web Foundation, and other non-profits. 

At the time of publication, the Free Our Feeds initiative had amassed over $67,000 (€64,150) in online donations.