A platform to take back our freedom of speech. Owned, managed and controlled by us. The users and creators.
Write the rules for the DAO on the blockchain. For example, content moderation would be based on the First Amendment. Our freedom of speech, to assemble and of a free press. This stops the back and forth about limiting speech based on political ideologies AND economic/class ones.
The DAO lives on the blockchain, and you would purchase "shares" of the social media platform in the form of tokens. These tokens provide ownership but also provide voting rights to vote on things that need to be decided by the community. You can also WORK for the DAO to get tokens and monetary compensation FROM the DAO investments.
We would keep from overthinking this, and the starting point would simply be a TikTok like app, with a similar algorithm. As an IT professional, my guess is the cost to build this from scratch would be about $200 - 500k for the development and $100k for the short term infrastructure and testing to scale up fast if needed. Open source might be a good idea, to make sure that it can always be recreated if needed.
Tokens (like Bitcoin and other crypto) will be more and more valuable as the platform grows. There will need to be a mechanism of distribution to decide how to calculate how much a content creator would get, and how engagement and participation would be rewarded.
Roll out platform to early investors/owners, and bug fix. Setup large scale voting platform to have DAO members be able to vote on issues that arise. Setup creator fund similar to TikTok. Offer ads to small and medium sized businesses (this is one of those things to vote on, but I think it is a good idea to keep it simple to start, and large businesses will not want to advertise until it blows up anyway)
Scale the platform and implement features the community votes on. Maintaining up to date platforms and app. Adapt to changes, in legal, in social dynamics, and based on community sentiment.
A DAO gives every user a piece of the platform through tokens or shares. Instead of all profits and control going to a corporation, they are distributed among the people who contribute to and use the platform. This creates a sense of collective ownership, ensuring decisions reflect the community’s interests. As the platform grows, users directly benefit from its success, fostering loyalty and engagement.
With a DAO, all major decisions—like content moderation policies, revenue distribution, or new features—are made collectively and transparently through community voting. This removes the secrecy and potential bias that exists in traditional corporate decision-making, ensuring the platform reflects the will of its users. Transparency builds trust, making the platform more appealing to users and creators alike.
A DAO-powered platform ensures a fair share of revenue goes to the people who make it thrive—content creators. Unlike traditional platforms that take a significant cut of ad revenue, a DAO allows creators to earn more for their work. This incentivizes high-quality content and attracts more creators, making the platform vibrant and competitive.
Instead of a corporation deciding what you can see, users can set their own filters and preferences for content. You could choose how much of your feed comes from like-minded people, opposing viewpoints, or even ads. This ensures a tailored experience while respecting free speech and avoiding the echo chambers often created by algorithmic content control.
A DAO ties its tokens’ value directly to the platform’s success, avoiding the speculative bubbles that plague many blockchain projects. As the platform grows and generates real revenue through ads, subscriptions, or other models, token value naturally increases. This creates a stable, long-term growth model that benefits users, creators, and the platform as a whole.
With users collectively owning the platform and having a say in its development, innovation becomes a community-driven effort. Features, updates, and policies are shaped by the people who actually use the platform, rather than executives or investors with outside interests. This ensures the platform evolves to meet real user needs, keeping it relevant and competitive.
Here are some useful positions that we would like to sign up if you would like to get in on the ground floor of this app.
Even if TikTok stays, it’ll likely come at the cost of government control. Platforms like TikTok already censor content, but with government involvement, the boundaries will tighten. We’ve seen this play out on other platforms too—X (formerly Twitter) suppressing left-leaning speech, Meta restricting right-leaning content, and controversial topics being buried across the board. Staying on these platforms means accepting that someone else gets to decide what’s okay to talk about.
Even if TikTok avoids a ban, your data is still being collected, analyzed, and used—not just by the company, but potentially by third parties like governments or corporations. TikTok works with Oracle to manage U.S. data, but that doesn’t stop data from being accessed or exploited. The same goes for any other corporate-controlled platform.
On platforms like TikTok, users and creators are the product, not the priority. Algorithms are designed to maximize profit for the company, not to serve users. This means your content, experience, and even visibility are dictated by what benefits their bottom line, not by what’s fair or beneficial for the community.
Even if TikTok stays “free,” it’s only free in the sense that you don’t pay directly to use it. The real cost is your data, your time, and your control. Algorithms steer what you see, who sees you, and how you interact. You’re essentially a passenger in a car you don’t drive.
Let’s say TikTok doesn’t get banned. What about the next platform that becomes too big or too free? It’ll face the same scrutiny, and the cycle will continue. Moving from one platform to another every time there’s a crackdown isn’t sustainable. We’ll always be at the mercy of corporations and governments unless we create something different.
Staying on TikTok (or moving to another corporate platform) means accepting the status quo. But we have the tools and technology to create something better—something that’s owned by the people who use it, not a corporation or government. A decentralized platform could offer real free speech, fair revenue for creators, and control for users. The longer we wait, the longer we stay stuck in this system.
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If you think you can help this project along, in any capacity, we would encourage you to apply and join our Discord server that we just launched.