A growing coalition of open tech leaders is calling for the democratization of social media platforms, urging the public to take control of their feeds and reduce the influence of tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. This new initiative, named Free Our Feeds, includes a wide array of tech entrepreneurs, scholars, and high-profile advocates, such as actor Mark Ruffalo and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. The group launched a fundraising campaign with the goal of creating a public service foundation designed to protect decentralized social networking platforms, such as Bluesky, from being dominated by billionaire interests.
Philippe Beaudoin, the co-founder and CEO of Numeno.ai (formerly Waverly), expressed concern over the concentration of power in the hands of a few tech moguls, stating, “The underlying problem [is] that one person can make such decisions for us. It puts us at the mercy of their decisions.” Beaudoin, alongside Mark Surman, the president of the Mozilla Foundation, is one of the custodians of the Free Our Feeds initiative. They, along with several others, will help establish the foundation, aiming to maintain the open, decentralized structure of Bluesky’s underlying technology without corporate or billionaire control.
The primary mission of Free Our Feeds is to advocate for the control of social media platforms to be returned to democratic processes, not to be subject to the decisions of tech billionaires. Sherif Elsayed-Ali, an executive director of the Future of Technology Institute and another project custodian, stressed the importance of keeping social media as a public good. He stated, “Social media is the space for public discourse and should be controlled by our democratic processes, not the autocratic whims of billionaires. There’s something fundamentally problematic about that.” The initiative aims to ensure that decentralized platforms like Bluesky remain open and accessible to all, without falling into the hands of those who could use them for personal gain or control.
To achieve this, the campaign seeks to raise $30 million USD, which will be used to build independently hosted infrastructure. This infrastructure will safeguard the content stream and data of Bluesky, ensuring it remains free from corporate interference. By December 2025, the initiative plans to establish an innovation fund aimed at supporting developers who wish to build alternative social media platforms using Bluesky’s open protocols. Ultimately, the campaign’s goal is to empower users to control their own feeds and contribute to the creation of a healthier, more transparent social media ecosystem.
The funds raised through crowdfunding will be managed under the umbrella of Development Gateway, a US-based charitable organization. While Bluesky supports the Free Our Feeds initiative’s objectives, the platform does not provide any operational or financial backing for the project. The custodians and executive team will oversee how the funds are used, ensuring transparency and accountability in their efforts to reshape the future of social media.
The launch of Free Our Feeds comes in response to concerns over the growing dominance of big tech companies and their billionaire CEOs. Bluesky, which opened registrations to the public in February 2024, was initially developed as a research project under Twitter’s leadership by then-CEO Jack Dorsey in 2019. It was later spun off as an independent company in 2021. The platform’s decentralized nature has attracted attention as a potential alternative to traditional, centralized social media, and the Free Our Feeds initiative seeks to ensure that it remains a tool for open discourse and innovation rather than being captured by the interests of the wealthiest individuals in tech.
By fostering an ecosystem where social media is governed by users and communities rather than corporate moguls, the Free Our Feeds campaign hopes to create a more equitable and transparent digital landscape, empowering people to take charge of their online interactions and shaping the future of social media in a way that serves the public interest.