Decentralized Instagram-Killer Pixelfed Gets a Mob...

In a turn of events that may be causing Meta headaches, a decentralized alternative to Instagram is growing by leaps and bounds. Pixelfed is a free and open-source photo-sharing site that was originally created in 2018 and has, for the past several years, largely been accessible via the web or through third-party apps. This week, however, Pixelfed announced the rollout of its own mobile apps for iOS and Android, signaling a big expansion for a site that already has some 330,000 users and a growing base of support.

Pixelfed has sought to portray itself as everything that Instagram is not. Unlike Meta’s 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 a lot of things, but one thing it is not is an opportunity for VC or others to ruin the vibe. I’ve turned down VC funding and will not inject advertising of any form into the project,” Pixelfed’s creator, Daniel Supernault, recently wrote on Mastodon. “Pixelfed is for the people, period.”

This deference to user autonomy may be the reason why the app seems to be growing in popularity. Indeed, Pixelfed’s growth has exploded over the last week, with the platform announcing an influx of users that has occasionally tested the small team’s current resources. “We are seeing unprecedented levels of traffic to pixelfed.social, and we are working to keep the service up and provision additional resources!” the site’s Mastodon page wrote Sunday.

You could understand how this might make Meta more than a little bit worried. Earlier this week, suspicions were aroused when 404 Media reported that the tech giant had been caught censoring and deleting links to Pixelfed on its own sites. Meta used the violation of its spam policy as justification. When reached for comment by Engadget, however, Meta claimed that the deletion of the Pixelfed links was a “mistake” and that they would subsequently be reinstated.

Gizmodo reached out to Meta for comment.

The social media industry is in a state of flux like never before, and competition between mainstream platforms and low-fi alternatives has reached new heights. While Mastodon and other Fediverse sites have been around for years, Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter pushed such alt-sites into the mainstream. Now, as users look for X alternatives in sites like Bluesky and Hive, it makes sense that web users may also be interested in seeking out an alternative to Meta’s offerings. As TikTok threatens to disappear forever, web users are even flocking to another Chinese app, RedNote, though they might be wiser to migrate instead to Loops, another Fediverse alternative that Supernault launched last year.