In a development that could cause headaches for the meta-network, a decentralized alternative to Instagram is growing by leaps and bounds. Pixelfed is a free, open-source photo-sharing site that was created in 2018 and for the past few years has been available primarily online or through third-party apps. This week, however, Pixelfed announced the launch of its own mobile apps for iOS and Android, marking a significant expansion of the site, which already has about 330,000 users and a growing support base.
Pixelfed has tried to present itself as everything Instagram is not. Unlike the Meta site, Pixelfed is ad-free and offers users a charter that respects their “fundamental rights” to “participate in online spaces that respect their privacy, dignity, and well-being.” The charter promises limited but consensual data collection, transparent algorithms, and a surveillance-free experience with zero web tracking. “Pixelfed is many things, but what it doesn’t have is the ability for venture capital funds or others to spoil the atmosphere. I have refused venture capital funding and will not inject any form of advertising into the project,” Pixelfed creator Daniel Supernault recently wrote on Mastodon. “Pixelfed is for people, period.”
This respect for user autonomy may be the reason for the app’s growing popularity. Indeed, Pixelfed’s growth has exploded over the past week, with the platform announcing an influx of users that has occasionally tested the small team’s current resources. “We’re seeing unprecedented levels of traffic on pixelfed.social, and we’re working to maintain the service and provide additional resources!” – Mastodon wrote on its website on Sunday.
It’s easy to see how this could have made Meta more than a little worried. Earlier this week, suspicions arose when 404 Media reported that the tech giant had been caught censoring and removing Pixelfed links on its own sites. As an excuse, Meta used a violation of its anti-spam policy. However, when Engadget reached out for comment, Meta said that the removal of the Pixelfed links was a “mistake” and that they would be reinstated later.
The social media industry is in a state of flux like never before, and competition between the major platforms and low-brow alternatives has reached new heights. While Mastodon and other Fediverse sites have been around for years, Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has pushed such alt sites into the mainstream. Now that users are looking for alternatives to X on sites like Bluesky and Hive, it stands to reason that internet users may also be interested in finding an alternative to Meta’s offerings. With TikTok threatening to disappear forever, internet users are even switching to another Chinese app, RedNote, although it might have been smarter to switch to Loops, another Fediverse alternative that Supernault launched last year.
