Press

A 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.

When aimed at decentralized social networking services, the attacks can cause instability and outages, but not everyone is taken offline. In Bluesky’s case, for instance, those who had moved their account to other providers, like Blacksky, which run on the same protocol and interoperate with Bluesky, were not impacted.

Notably, the service disruptions are impacting Bluesky, but other communities, like Blacksky, that run their own infrastructure on the underlying protocol that powers the decentralized social network, are still functioning. Blacksky’s team told TechCrunch that the Bluesky outage has led to a “significant spike” in migration requests from Bluesky users over the past 12 hours, as users, devs, and other ATmosphere founders like Sebastian at Eurosky have been promoting its services.

The biggest social media platforms in the world have alienated their users and trapped them inside algorithms that only serve corporate interests. But there is good reason to have hope for the future of decentralized social apps, made for and by their communities. In this live interview recorded at SXSW 2026 in Austin, Texas, Rabble speaks with Rudy Fraser, the creator of Blacksky Algorithms, and Bridget Todd, the host of the podcast There Are No Girls on the Internet and an affiliate at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.

We explore Rudy's unique perspective on open networks & protocols as the foundation of community sovereignty - including his thoughts on collective intelligence, State surveillance & violence, the legacy of Black anarchism in America, the relationship between values and technical architecture, the role of capital in revolution & more.

Xue agreed, adding, “We align with the ATProto ethos that people should be able to communicate using the apps and tools they choose. We believe that by solving the hard problems for ATProto users in safe, transparent, and user-friendly ways, they’ll continue to choose us,” he said. Shortly after Bluesky added support for the Germ badge, another AT Protocol-based client, Blacksky, did as well.

We are at a tipping point where “digital convenience” has become a trap for community memory. For archives and ongoing movements, the corporate cloud is no longer a neutral storage locker — it is a liability.

Blacksky Algorithms has announced an amazing new initiative to support mutual aid called BlackSky Cash. It's a thought-provoking effort with impressive goals, and it's exciting to see what's coming here.

Sovereignty is not an aesthetic. It is infrastructure." In a digital landscape defined by extraction and surveillance, true autonomy requires owning the platform, not just the profile. In Episode 18, we sit down with Rudy Fraser, founder of Blacksky Algorithms, to dismantle the current state of the internet. We discuss the creation of sovereign internet communities and the unique challenges faced by Black leaders in tech. This is not just about coding; it is about the "praxis of autonomy"—building open-source, community-driven platforms that prioritize privacy over profit.

Rudy Fraser, Founder & CEO of Blacksky Algorithms shares how Blacksky grew into the largest Black community on the decentralized web, with custom feeds used by over 2.5M people. He explains how their toolkit lets communities control algorithms, moderation, governance, and pooled funds while staying connected to a global social media ecosystem. Rudy talks about mutual aid roots, open-source development, community-written guidelines, the impact of US politics and free-speech crackdowns, and why privacy-preserving, community-run spaces are essential for Black autonomy and modern cypherpunk organizing.