73 lines
4.2 KiB
Markdown
73 lines
4.2 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Social.coop: A Social Network Owned by Its Members"
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description: "What happens when the people using a social network are also the people who own it"
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summary: What if social media actually belonged to the people who use it? Social.coop has been proving since 2017 that member-owned, democratically governed social networks aren't just possible—they feel better to use.
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date: 2026-01-04
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tags: ["case-study", "cooperative", "Mastodon", "fediverse", "social media"]
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categories: ["Creative Communities"]
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weight: 2
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featureImageCaption: "Photo by [Annie Spratt](https://unsplash.com/@anniespratt) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/QckxruozjRg) (Unsplash License)"
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---
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## What They Needed
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In [2017](https://medium.com/open-collective/social-coop-a-cooperative-decentralized-social-network-c10980c9ed91), a group of people were tired of the bargain that social media offered: use our platform for free, and we'll surveil you, manipulate your attention, and sell access to your eyeballs.
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They didn't want to quit social media. They wanted to *own* it.
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## What They Built
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They created **[Social.coop](https://wiki.social.coop/)**—a [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) instance run as a democratic cooperative.
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Mastodon is open source software that works like Twitter, but with a crucial difference: anyone can run their own server, and servers can connect to each other through a protocol called [ActivityPub](https://activitypub.rocks/). There's no central company controlling everything.
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Social.coop took this further. They structured their Mastodon server as a formal cooperative:
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- **Members pay dues** ([sliding scale, typically £1-10/month](https://join.social.coop/home.html))
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- **Members vote** on how the community is run
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- **Members elect** a steering committee
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- **Decisions are made** through democratic processes using Loomio (another open source tool)
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No investors. No ads. No algorithm optimizing for engagement. Just people who want to talk to each other, governing their own space.
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## What Happened
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Social.coop has been running since 2017—an eternity in social media terms.
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**What members say:**
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> "I forgot social media could feel good."
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> "The timeline shows posts in chronological order. That's it. No algorithm trying to make me angry."
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> "When there's a policy question, we actually discuss it and vote. I've never had a say in how a platform treats me before."
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The community has navigated real challenges together: moderation policies, server costs, how to handle growth. Each decision was made democratically, with the people affected having a voice.
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## What They Learned
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**Governance matters as much as technology.** Mastodon is just software. What makes Social.coop different is the cooperative structure wrapped around it. The technology enables community ownership; the governance makes it real.
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**Small can be good.** Social.coop isn't trying to compete with Twitter's scale. A few thousand members who actually govern their space together is the point, not a limitation. Human-scale communities can make decisions that planet-scale platforms never could.
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**Federation means you're not alone.** Because Mastodon servers connect to each other, Social.coop members can follow and interact with people on thousands of other servers. You get the benefits of a small, well-governed community *and* connection to a broader network.
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**Sustainability comes from members, not growth.** With no investors demanding returns, Social.coop doesn't need to grow. It needs to serve its members. That changes everything about how decisions get made.
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## What This Means for You
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If you're part of a community—a nonprofit, a neighborhood group, a professional association, a movement—you can run your own social space.
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The tools are free and open source:
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- **[Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/)** for Twitter-like social networking
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- **[Loomio](https://www.loomio.com/)** for democratic decision-making
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- **[Open Collective](https://opencollective.com/)** for transparent finances
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You don't have to accept the terms that commercial social media offers. You can write your own.
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**Learn more:** [social.coop](https://social.coop)
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---
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*The question isn't whether social media is good or bad. It's: who owns the space where you gather? Social.coop answered that question differently.*
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