The Future of Social Media: Protocols vs. Platforms

Last week, Meta announced changes to its content moderation policy, including the removal of third-party fact-checking across its apps in favor of a crowdsourced community notes feature, similar to X.

Today on Equity, Rebecca Bellan caught up with Eugen Rochko, CEO of Mastodon, to explore what these changes mean for users and how decentralized social media platforms like Mastodon could offer a viable alternative to mainstream giants like Meta.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about:

• Mastodon’s decision to transition to a non-profit in Europe
• The challenges of implementing interoperability with platforms like TikTok -- which is set to “go dark” in the US over the weekend -- and the importance of user choice.
• Which other decentralized platforms we should keep an eye on. (Hint: Pixelfed is in the mix.)

Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here.

Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. We'd also like to thank TechCrunch’s audience development team.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices