'Free Our Feeds' campaign aims to remove billionaires' influence from social media

Author Sharlene Gandhi

Free Our Feeds is a recently launched campaign aiming to shake up ownership and control in the technology industry and “our digital public sphere.”

With technical advisors from the Mozilla Foundation, New_Public, and the Future of Technology Institute, Free Our Feeds is seeking US$30 million over three years—$4 million to begin with—to set up a new public interest foundation that can host critical technology infrastructure.

Signatories include Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Toronto-based public technology advocate Bianca Wylie.

The campaign directly references the actions of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, the billionaire owners of widely used social media platforms who have wielded their power to continue the spread of misinformation and influence government policy.

Despite having to lay off a significant number of staff members last year, the Mozilla Foundation has long been advocating for publicly-owned technology. New_Public, meanwhile, is a research hub dedicated to increasing civic engagement through hyperlocal online communities.

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  • Sharlene Gandhi is the Future of Good editorial fellow on digital transformation.

    Sharlene has been reporting on responsible business, environmental sustainability and technology in the UK and Canada since 2018. She has worked with various organizations during this time, including the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business at Lancaster University, AIGA Eye on Design, Social Enterprise UK and Nature is a Human Right. Sharlene moved to Toronto in early 2023 to join the Future of Good team, where she has been reporting at the intersections of technology, data and social purpose work. Her reporting has spanned several subject areas, including AI policy, cybersecurity, ethical data collection, and technology partnerships between the private, public and third sectors.

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