Welcome to Basel Punkt Social
Basel Punkt Social works to make the free and open social web thrive, starting from Basel.
Social media are great, but their current state threatens our society in many ways. The advertisement-based business model of Big Tech companies has brought attention-hungry algorithms, that fill our timelines with detached, addictive content. As it turns out, our attention is best grabbed by content that makes us envious or angry. At the same time, we witness Big Tech rubbing shoulders with governmental power, not shying away from steering the public discourse, thereby threatening our democracies.
To make social media great again, the business model of Big Tech must be broken. And it can be broken. For that, we need to free ourselves from the fenced gardens of Big Tech social media and embrace the true alternative: the Fediverse. This free and open social network can’t be owned and will by definition serve the people who use it.
This project combines research and community building to find out how we can let more people enjoy the Fediverse. The research part goes under the name “Basel Punkt Social” and has its home here, on org.basel.social. The community part is at home on the main domain basel.social and is loosely referred to as Basel Punk Social.