GoKawiilA new project called Acorn has launched a way for organizations and creators to build their own online communities as an alternative to centralized social media platforms like Instagram, X, and Threads. It uses the same underlying technology that powers the decentralized social media app Bluesky, allowing communities to build their own homepages, create starter packs for new members, and customize feeds and moderation tools.
Acorn’s platform hails from Blacksky, a company building its own decentralized social media toolkit around the AT Protocol. The AT protocol was developed by Bluesky’s team and is used by it and other open social apps, like Flashes, Spark, Skylight, Surf, Streamplace, Leaflet, and more.
Image Credits:Acorn from Blacksky
To date, Blacksky’s focus has been on building tools to provide a safer online space for members of the Black Twitter community to move to — an effort that has so far included forking Bluesky, building custom moderation services, creating its own implementation of the AT Protocol, and other technical feats.
With Acorn, Blacksky is providing access to these same tools to other communities that want to build their own spaces on the open social web.
This could allow organizations and creators to establish communities they control, rather than ceding that control to tech giants, leaving them at the mercy of inscrutable algorithms and ever-changing policies. For instance, X recently announced it was shutting down its own Communities feature, leaving users scrambling to move their groups elsewhere.
At launch, Acorn includes a set of tools to help communities onboard new members, customize their feeds, configure and run moderation services, and track community growth through analytics, among other things.
As on Bluesky, where users can create “Starter Packs” with a list of suggested follows for newcomers looking to grow their network, Acorn allows communities to create starter packs of their own. It also provides reputation systems that help communities recognize and manage members, using things like custom badges and awards, along with tools for policing bots and trolls.
Image Credits:Acorn from Blacksky
Communities can also define the moderation policies that matter most to them, then access custom tools to manage the reporting flow and other actions, like taking down or banning accounts, or removing posts.
... continue reading