By association of ideas, Facebook and X seem in the collective imagination closer to the concepts of chaos and toxicity than those of civic-mindedness and community. In the shadow of these giants, new social networks are trying to break the mold so as not to fall into the same trap.
The nonprofit New_Public keeps a close eye on newcomers to the digital world. It recently released a study of the social network Front Porch Forum, based primarily in Vermont. Its conclusion: “The Front Porch Forum is useful, encourages civic engagement, and really builds a sense of community.”
Can the same be said of Californian heavyweights Meta and X?
This conclusion (and the question) is being drawn by users of the Vermont forum. They were asked to compare their visits to this site with those they make to Facebook and Nextdoor. Less well-known in Canada, Nextdoor is also a Californian social network that is focused on community and neighborhood. Its critics accuse it of fueling division and animosity.
Compared to these two, then, members of the Front Porch Forum say they find their local network “more civilized, more sustainable and more attractive.”
Beyond the GAFAM model
In Quebec, the creators of Nouvelle Place have been working for over a year on a social network that would resemble that of the Front Porch Forum. In fact, their greatest similarity is that they are doing everything to move away from the model imposed by Meta, with Facebook, Instagram and Threads, and by X, the former Twitter bought by billionaire Elon Musk.
“When your main imperative is no longer to make more and more money, your priorities are elsewhere,” says Steve Proulx, the boss of the content agency 37.e Avenue to whom the idea of the New Square comes back. “You no longer have to force people to scroll constantly, since you have fewer ad impressions to sell. We think social media should be addictive, but who decided that? It was Facebook!
An online social platform also does not have to necessarily sell the information generated by its users’ visits, adds the Montreal entrepreneur.
“All of this is the priorities of GAFAM, not those of Internet users.”
La Nouvelle Place hopes to have a website online, probably in a beta format, so not fully tested, by the beginning of 2026. It’s a bit complicated, because everything has to be created for a company that has just been formed in the form of a cooperative where the members will have an important role to play.
“We have rules to establish, we will have to elect the board of directors, and we have to hire full-time people. The platform will be based on a content recommendation algorithm — obviously. The novelty would be to have a transparent algorithm, whose operation would be subject to a vote by the members. Imagine having public discussions on how the machine works behind the scenes…”
Social networks… more modest
Another failing inherited from GAFAM is to imagine that a social network can only be successful if it is globalized.
Front Porch Forum has 235,000 members. That’s not a lot, but for Vermont, which has 270,000 homes and not quite 650,000 people, it’s a lot. Posts are sent to interested members once a day, via a mobile app, its website, or by email. At most, participating in the Free Porch Forum takes about ten minutes a day.
This is on purpose. The creators of the site say it: we do not want to fuel screen addiction. They add: we do not participate in the surveillance industry and do not make any profit from the resale of our members’ information.
The first thing the site asks new visitors to do is provide their street address. This eliminates anonymity and discourages fake accounts that hamper larger networks. The second thing that gets people talking: all posts must be approved by a moderator before they’re published.
Before the internet, people were advised to think seven times before speaking. Nowadays, moderators do that job. On Front Porch Forum, it works.
Interactions on this forum create a sense of trust. “When a majority of neighbors have this sense of trust and reliability, it strengthens the entire community,” the New_Public study concludes.
You can’t say that about all social networks…