US tech executives start a $30 million campaign to free social media from billionaire control: Report

The report comes days after Meta announced controversial changes to its content moderation policies, such as scaling back its fact-checking programme.

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The initiative, which aims to be operational by the end of 2025, aims to help anyone build their own social media platforms by providing independent infrastructure around the AT Protocol, an open-source technology.

This is the same technology that powers the Bluesky social network.

“For the first time, we have a clear pathway to securing the future of social media as a tool for connection, creativity, and joy,” the report quoted Nabiha Syed, executive director of Mozilla Foundation as saying. “But it will take community-driven resources and independent infrastructure to ensure it remains free from the pressures of venture capital and billionaire capture.”

Syed is also one of the nine custodians overseeing the project.

According to the report, the campaign’s immediate goal is to raise $4 million as part of the larger $30 million over three years effort to establish a public interest foundation that will support the AT Protocol and build independent infrastructure, including a second “relay” system.

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The relay is a backup index of all the network’s content, allowing both developers and users to access posts even if Bluesky restricts data access.

So far, the campaign has raised nearly $18,000 from 273 donors on GoFundMe.

“We’re in a world right now where every new startup is either crypto or AI,” the report quoted Roger McNamee, an early Facebook investor turned tech critic who is also backing the initiative. “If this works, it’s going to make the world a much better place.”

The campaign’s custodians include executives from Mozilla, the Social Web Foundation, and other nonprofit technology organizations.

This comes after Bluesky, which positions itself as an alternative to X (Formerly Twitter) saw explosive growth over the last few months, reaching nearly 26 million users by the end of 2024.

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Half of these users joined in the last six weeks after Donald Trump’s election victory.

It is now in the final stages of raising new capital led by Bain Capital Ventures, valuing it at around $700 million. However, the custodians feel because it is venture capital-backed, it could also soon face the same pressure other platforms do.