Jack Dorsey Invests $10M in Open Source Social Media Nonprofit

Jack Dorsey Invests $10 Million in Open-Source Social Media Initiatives

Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter and current CEO of Block, is actively involved in the development of novel social applications, including Bitchat and Sun Day. Beyond these projects, he has committed $10 million to support experimental, open-source projects and tools designed to reshape the future of social media.

The “andOtherStuff” Collective

These funding efforts are channeled through an online group named “andOtherStuff,” established in May. The team comprises Dorsey himself, Evan Henshaw-Plath – Twitter’s inaugural employee – “Calle,” the creator of the e-cash system Cashu, Alex Gleason, formerly the engineering lead at Truth Social, and Jeff Gardner, who was the fourth employee at Intercom.

The group initially collaborated on Nostr, an open and “apolitical” social networking protocol that has garnered significant attention from Dorsey since his departure from Twitter and his resignation from Bluesky’s board. However, their scope extends to exploring other technologies, such as ActivityPub – the protocol underpinning Mastodon and similar decentralized applications – and Cashu.

Critique of Existing Social Media Models

Dorsey has increasingly voiced criticism regarding the evolution of contemporary social media platforms. He has stated that Twitter should not have operated as a traditional company and expressed concerns that Bluesky was repeating past errors made at Twitter.

Consequently, “andOtherStuff” aims to function not as a company, but as a “community of hackers,” according to Henshaw-Plath. Their objective is to develop technologies encompassing new consumer social applications, alongside experiments like developer tools and libraries, empowering others to create their own applications.

One example of their work is Shakespeare, an application-building platform akin to Lovable, but specifically designed for constructing Nostr-based social apps with the aid of artificial intelligence.

Current Projects and Technologies

In addition to Shakespeare, the group is responsible for heynow, a voice note application built on Nostr; the Cashu wallet; the private messenger White Noise; and the Nostr-based social community +chorus, alongside the applications previously released by Dorsey.

Henshaw-Plath highlights that advancements in AI-driven coding have facilitated this level of experimentation, mirroring how technologies like Ruby on Rails, Django, and JSON propelled the growth of Web 2.0.

Henshaw-Plath recently participated in the inaugural episode of Dorsey’s new podcast, revolution.social with @rabble. (Henshaw-Plath’s X handle is @rabble.)

The conversation, held at a hackathon in Switzerland due to Dorsey’s residence in Costa Rica and Henshaw-Plath’s location in New Zealand, covered Twitter’s history and Dorsey’s perspectives on the shortcomings of social media and potential solutions.

The Protocol vs. Company Debate

“It took me considerable time to realize this… I hadn’t fully articulated it until my return as CEO,” Dorsey explained. “It’s challenging for something like [Twitter] to function as a company when its core purpose should be a protocol.” He pointed out that Twitter was heavily reliant on its advertisers, a situation that Elon Musk, now at the helm of X (formerly Twitter), also faces.

While acknowledging the necessity of catering to advertisers for business and stock performance, Dorsey believes it was “the incorrect path for the internet.”

“Advertisers possess the power to withdraw funding, significantly impacting revenue,” Dorsey stated. “However, if [Twitter] were an open protocol, a truly open project, businesses could be built upon it, fostering a healthy ecosystem.”

Dorsey previously initiated an effort to establish an open protocol within Twitter, which ultimately led to the creation of Bluesky. However, he contends that Bluesky encounters similar challenges as conventional social media due to its funding structure – reliance on venture capital.

“I hold [Bluesky CEO] Jay [Graber] and the team in high regard,” Dorsey told Henshaw-Plath, “but I disagree with the structure… I aim to direct energy towards a different approach, more akin to Bitcoin – completely open and not owned by any single entity at the protocol level. This is what I see in Nostr as well.” He added, “That’s where I want to focus my efforts… away from the more corporate direction, even if it’s a public benefit corporation.”

Future Plans and Interviews

Future podcast episodes will feature interviews with individuals offering insights into the evolution of social media and technology, including journalists Kara Swisher and Taylor Lorenz, former Twitter head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth, Substack co-founder Chris Best, Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine, Cory Doctorow (who coined the term “enshittification”), and misinformation researcher Renée DiResta.

The “andOtherStuff” team is also developing a “Bill of Rights” for social media, outlining essential provisions related to privacy, security, interoperability, transparency, identity, self-governance, and portability.

This initiative, they believe, will ensure accountability of platforms – including Bluesky – to their users, regardless of external pressures.

Dorsey’s initial investment has enabled the nonprofit’s launch and supported the development of initial iOS applications. Meanwhile, others are contributing by building Android versions, developer tools, and various social media experiments.

Henshaw-Plath concludes, “There are further developments underway that we are not yet prepared to disclose, but they promise to be highly exciting.”