As perhaps the first to use the phrase "free our feeds" and the Twitter hashtag #FreeOurFeeds, it is gratifying to see the launch of the Free Our Feeds Foundation to embark on a major step toward that vision.
Why? There have been many small steps to free our feeds, now seen as an urgent need to "billionaire-proof" our social media connectivity. Musk and then Zuck have shown the perils of the "loaded weapon" we have left on the table of online discourse, by so shamelessly picking it up to use for their own ends. We can only guess where they -- and others like them -- or worse -- will point their weapons next.
What? Many see the Mastodon "fediverse" as a major step in this direction, arguably so -- and a similar move to open governance of the fediverse, also on 1/13, is a second major step there.* But many are coming to see Bluesky as a larger step toward both horizontal and vertical interoperability for the full range of functions needed to free us from platform lock-in and manipulation. I am hopeful that both efforts will succeed, and that those ecosystems will grow -- and gain high levels of interoperability with one another (and with future protocols).
How? Bluesky seems to currently be the most open to building high levels of function and extensibility. We are in the early days of social media, just learning to crawl. To leverage this technology so that we can walk, run, and fly -- while remaining democratic and free -- it must be kept open to user control and to the control of communities. That will enable us to re-energize the social mediation ecosystem as I explained recently (and in many other works listed here).
A key aspect of Bluesky and its AT Protocol (not yet in the Mastodon architecture as I understand it) is that, at the level of both 1) the app, and 2) of the relays that tie app instances together, each can be separately managed and replicated, along with 3) the level of independently selectable feed algorithms. Federation of the relays is important because they are resource-heavy services, not very amenable to lightly resourced community managers, but capable of being secured and managed by trusted organizations to support advanced algorithms. That is also important to preserve privacy. The Free Our Feeds Foundation promises to take a large step in that direction for the Bluesky ecosystem
As Cory Doctorow, Mr. Enshittification, himself, said of this effort:
If there's a way to use Bluesky without locking myself to the platform, I will join the party there in a hot second. And if there's a way to join the Bluesky party from the Fediverse, then goddamn I will party my ass off.
An opening for entrepreneurship? These moves create potentially huge opportunities to build better app instances, better relays, better algorithms, and new levels of services and user experiences to make this all easy to use, powerful, trustworthy, and well-engineered. An effective ecosystem creates a large pie for many players -- and levels the playing field -- unlike the concentration and extractive business models of current platforms. The example of how the web ate CompuServe, Prodigy, and AOL to grow far larger businesses may repeat itself.
Of course 2021 was not long ago, and many people were becoming advocates for algorithmic choice. But I also take pride in being perhaps the longest-serving advocate for these ideas -- and perhaps the one looking farthest ahead. For this forward view, see especially the recent works synopsized in this post, and this fuller list.
What I may have underestimated is how the dominant platforms would seed their own destruction, without need for regulatory action - and instead, grassroots innovation might be enough to replace them. Movements like #FreeOurFeeds can create a digital republic…”if you can keep it.” (Which is not to say we should not legislate to support that as well.)
A re-formation of social media? The hope is that Bluesky Social PBC and Free Our Feeds Foundation (along with similar Mastodon efforts) can catalyze a vibrant open ecosystem -- to create a new infrastructure for social media that lets a thousand flowers bloom -- and can grow and evolve over many sociotechnical generations.
