About Yarn.social

A brief history

Yarn.social was created around July 2020 when James Mills – the creator and original author of many of the software components – was looking for decentralised social media alternatives (probably for the umpteenth time!) and came across an interesting spec and associated software: all based around a very simple file format called twtxt.

As a former Facebook Inc. engineer, James was acutely aware of the negative effects ’traditional’ social media has on not only individuals, but on communities as a whole. He quickly set out to try a few clients (e.g., twet) and eventually started building one himself in the form of a web application. Suddenly, the first (of what is now many) Yarn.social pods was born, and twtxt.net launched on 20 July 2020.

Since then the project has grown from a single pod into a whole ecosystem:

• yarnd — the multi-user pod server powering twtxt.net and many independent pods;
• A family of extensions to the original twtxt spec — threads, mentions, metadata, multiline posts and more — designed in the open with the twtxt community;
• twtxt.app — an offline-first web client that lets anyone start reading with no account at all;
• twtd — a tiny personal feed server for those who want to own their corner of the web outright; and
• Supporting services — search, feeds and an ActivityPub bridge to the wider Fediverse.

(The original Flutter-based mobile app, Goryon, has since been retired — twtxt.app installs to your home screen and works offline, which is everything Goryon set out to do, without the app store.)

Why Yarn.social?

One of the primary reasons why Yarn.social was created in the first place was out of frustration with traditional social media and blogging platforms.

Traditional social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, TikTok, Twitter/X and many others are all centred around a few key ideas:

• Driving user engagement;
• Collecting user data and metadata;
• Selling that data to advertisers; and
• Showing users targeted advertising.

Most folks are okay with this, but many don’t understand the impact this has on their lives, and the cost to consumers overall in our everyday lives.

If something is free, you are the product

There are a few side effects of platforms such as the ones mentioned above, and, as you’re probably using one right now, here are the big ones:

• Privacy is non-existent: these companies know more about you than you know about yourself, your family and your friends;
• Data breaches happen all the time: data is leaked, bad actors / hackers can access your photos, your messages, your private lives; and
• What users actually see is continually manipulated, often to drive up engagement and advertising revenue.

This is why decentralised social media is so important; even more so today than ever before, we would argue! If you have something to say, an opinion to share, an article you want to publish, photos to share — why should your data privacy and security be up for sale?

With Yarn.social, it isn’t! We believe in an open, honest, transparent social media experience. Yarn.social is made up of a very simple specification and set of protocols that are themselves based on standard web technologies that anyone can explore, implement and participate in.

Our rules

The Yarn.social ecosystem – its software components, specifications and services – has a few simple rules:

• We do not collect or store any personally identifiable information (i.e., no PII);
• We do not track any user behaviour, user data or metadata whatsoever (i.e., no analytics);
• We do not serve ads at all (i.e., no advertising); and
• Your data is your own: delete it at any time; take your data with you (i.e., user data privacy and control).

Our vision

Yarn.social’s vision is simple:

To provide an open, privacy-focused and transparent social media experience for all.

Our philosophy

At Yarn.social, we like to keep things simple, therefore our philosophy is just that, and something we adhere to when building the ecosystem, making improvements, discussing new features and ideas, and collaborating with others:

• Keep things as simple as possible;
• Do not compromise on data security and user privacy;
• Software should be lightweight;
• Self-hosted software is preferable to cloud services or SaaS; and
• Ship early, ship often.

Join us!

Come join us today — start reading on twtxt.app, find us in #Yarn.social on Libera.Chat, or contribute to the code and specs. 🤗