At a time when established social media platforms are facing criticism and turbulence — from TikTok’s temporary shutdown to Meta’s withdrawal from fact-checking and growing criticism over political content moderation — a new approach to social media is gaining some attention.
“Help us put control back into the hands of the people!” declares Canadian developer Daniel Supernault, whose open-source platforms aim to provide privacy-focused alternatives to mainstream social media.
Supernault’s Kickstarter campaign, launched on Jan. 24, has already exceeded its initial CA$50,000 goal, TechCrunch reports, raising CA$93,022 (approximately US$64,839) as of 11:02 a.m. PT today. The funding will support the development of three platforms within the Fediverse — a decentralized network of interconnected social media services. These platforms include Pixelfed, Loops and Sup, designed as privacy-focused alternatives to Instagram, TikTok and WhatsApp, respectively. Each platform rejects traditional venture capital funding and ad-based revenue models in favor of community-driven development.
Instagram, TikTok And WhatsApp Alternatives
Pixelfed is an open-source, privacy-focused alternative to Instagram.
As for the alternative apps themselves, Pixelfed is the most mature of Supernault’s projects, offering an ad-free alternative to Instagram that launched its mobile apps on Jan. 14. The platform provides traditional photo-sharing features like filters and albums, while maintaining a strict no-tracking, no-data-selling policy. Its main instance, Pixelfed.social, has accumulated more than 200,000 users and has reached 6th place in the social media category in Apple’s App Store, making it the second-largest server in the Fediverse behind Mastodon.social, according to network statistics from FediDB.
Another app, Loops, aims to reimagine short-form video sharing. Currently in an alpha testing phase via Apple’s TestFlight programme, the platform will support videos up to 60 seconds long, with planned features including sound remixing capabilities and pinned profile videos. Unlike mainstream video platforms, Loops also focuses on human moderation, implementing a trust score system where content undergoes review before posting.
Lastly, Sup, the messaging platform alternative, remains in development. While specific features haven’t been announced, TechCrunch that reports the platform will prioritize user privacy and community-driven development, following the same ethical principles as its sister platforms.
What Is The Fediverse?
At the heart of these alternative apps lies the Fediverse platform — a portmanteau of “federated” and “universe” that represents a radical reimagining of how social media can work. Unlike traditional platforms where users are locked into isolated ecosystems, the Fediverse operates as an interconnected network of independent servers that communicate with each other through a standard protocol called ActivityPub.
To understand how this works, imagine the current social media landscape as a series of walled gardens. If you’re on Instagram, you can only interact with other Instagram users. If you’re on TikTok, you’re limited to TikTok’s universe. The Fediverse, however, breaks down these walls. For users, the experience resembles email’s ability to work across different providers — whether you use Gmail, Outlook or another email provider, you can still seamlessly communicate with users on other email services.
The Fediverse brings this same end user experience to social media. A Pixelfed user, can, for example, follow and interact with accounts on X alternative Mastodon. A Mastodon user can also, in turn, follow and comment on Pixelfed photos — all without leaving their preferred platforms.
This decentralised approach fundamentally reshapes social media dynamics. Rather than being subject to universal policies set by a single company, users can instead select specific servers — essentially choosing their community and its rules. One server, for instance, might prioritize artistic content and maintain strict policies against commercial posts, while another might focus on technology discussions with robust fact-checking requirements. These servers, each independently operated, can also choose which other servers to connect with, allowing communities to isolate themselves from servers known for harassment or misinformation, while maintaining connections with those sharing similar values.
Crucially, users also retain the ability to migrate to different servers without losing their followers, which is a stark contrast to traditional platforms, where leaving means starting over and building up a following from scratch. This is a particularly crucial feature for influencers and content creators, who were recently faced with losing millions of followers during the recent TikTok blackout.
Challenges and Opportunities
Despite a turbulent start to the year, the established social media giants still hold an … [+]
Despite their promised benefits, these open-source platforms face significant technical and practical hurdles. The complexity of decentralised systems can deter mainstream users, while rapid growth could strain server resources. Supernault acknowledges these challenges in his Kickstarter campaign, which includes plans to strengthen infrastructure and expand moderation capabilities.
And yet, these challenges emerge against a backdrop of broader shifts in social media. For companies, these open-source platforms present both opportunities and considerations, and the Fediverse’s decentralised nature could allow businesses to maintain more direct relationships with their communities, while reducing dependency on algorithmic distribution.
Meanwhile, the selection of alternative platforms continues to expand. Other developers are also creating specialized apps for existing decentralised networks. Bluesky, which now has almost 30 million users, is launching own photo-sharing application called Flashes “in a matter of weeks”. This emerging ecosystem suggests that developers see opportunities in creating focused, ethical alternatives to mainstream platforms.
For users, the landscape offers a choice between convenience and control. While mainstream platforms provide seamless, familiar experiences, these open-source alternatives could lead to greater privacy and community governance. The success of platforms like Pixelfed, with its growing user base, suggests that there’s at least some appetite for this approach, even if it requires users to engage more actively with how their social media operates. Time will tell how these challenger platforms will affect the established social media giants, if at all.
