The takeover of X (formerly Twitter) by Elon Musk has shown one thing very clearly: media when controlled by one person or certain interest groups is dangerous. Content can be distorted, distorting the opinions of users. Simultaneously, superfluous AI functions generate enormous carbon footprints, personal data played with hard and fast and these platforms are specifically designed to addict us.
Now, time for some good news. It is surprisingly easy to distance yourself from the “big players” of the digital world. Close your account, call for your data to be deleted and use a decentralised alternative from the Fediverse. Welcome to a better, fairer, healthier and safer online world!
How can we ensure a green digital future?
Growing e-waste, carbon emissions from AI, data centre water usage––is rampant digitalisation compatible with a healthy planet? Our latest project explores how digital tools and services can be developed with sustainability in mind.
Why established social networks are becoming a problem
Even though X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok may appear different, they have one thing in common. They are free because their operators earn money from user data and advertising. At the same time, the majority of their content comes from users without them being paid directly for it.
In this already not particularly fair deal, the operators also determine the rules. Which server will my private photo end up on? What content can I upload and am I allowed to express my opinion freely? Will my content be judged differently based on my origin, social status, gender and other protected factors? And does the uploaded content still belong to me after it has been uploaded?
These rules are set by operators such as Google, Meta or the team around Elon Musk at “X”. The platform operators are far from focused on creating the best possible environment for their users, says Head of Communication Andy Piper from decentralised messaging service Mastodon.
“In order to generate money through advertising revenue, [the operators] want to obtain as much information about the users as possible. In order to obtain this data, users should spend as much time as possible with the product,” says Piper. On the one hand, this maximisation is achieved by focusing on user-friendliness. On the other, the services differentiate themselves by being incompatible. This creates a “walled garden effect” that binds users more strongly to the respective service.
According to Andy Pipier, such ties generate dependencies. They become a problem, especially when operators change the rules of their platforms. Meta was criticised in 2021, for example, because new terms of use for WhatsApp Messenger were intended to significantly reduce data protection. The service initially withdrew the changes following widespread criticism. In 2024, Meta abolished content moderation on Instagram, presumably under pressure from the new US President Donald Trump. And everyone has probably already heard about the downfall of the “X” platform.
This is why your next service should be decentralised
If these services had a decentralised structure, such changes would not have been possible. In the Internet, decentralised refers to platforms that are not centrally concentrated on one or more servers of a single operator. Instead, several independent servers communicate with each other. These servers can be operated by individuals, companies or communities, which can set their own rules. Users are free to choose which server they register on. Since the individual servers do not belong to one person or company, the power of disposal over content, data and co. is also divided among several bodies.
Users can switch to another server or another instance in the event of problems or other requirements. This is because their operators only create the technical requirements for the platform. Unlike the big names, there is a plurality of communities here. This, according to Andy Piper, also exists in the real world: “If so-called big tech companies start to gear their moderation guidelines more towards a US-centric world view, users can turn to a different community. Decentralised networks are more flexible and better suited to adapting to the needs of communities around the world.”
Digital Service Act – EU control attempt
The EU is trying to curb hate speech, abuse and criminal offences on the internet with the Digital Service Act.
The draft law has been applicable since 17 February 2024 and is intended to ensure that illegal content is also removed more quickly on social networks.
There is also an independent contact point for those affected by the YouTube, Facebook and Tiktok platforms. In March 2025, this centre reported that 1,500 disputes had already been received on the aforementioned platforms. According to the press release, the fact that 77 out of 141 complaints received for Facebook were decided in favour of those affected shows the value of the initiative.
Technically, decentralised networks are also more resilient to cyber-attacks and natural disasters, as their servers are not just located in one place. Even if the servers of large companies are located all over the world, they don’t work independently of each other. Data sovereignty is also organised very differently here. If the operator of a decentralised network decides to misuse or sell user data, it is not collected in a single location.
A very simple example shows that decentralised networks work: emails. Here, we are free to decide whether to open an account with Google, GMX or a green provider such as Posteo or Tuta. As their servers communicate with each other using the same protocol, we can exchange emails freely.
Choose from these decentralised alternatives
Pixelfed – the Instagram in the Fediverse
Let’s start with Pixelfed, a decentralised and open-source Instagram alternative. Pixelfed was launched way back in 2018. However, the platform only experienced a large increase in users following changes to Instagram’s moderation guidelines. Their app, which only appeared at the beginning of 2025, was downloaded 10,000 times in the first two days.
As the operators of Pixelfed have joined the Fediverse via the ActivityPub protocol, Pixelfed users can also communicate with other services. For example, Mastodon or PeerTube, which we will introduce in a moment.
Mastodon and Bluesky – two alternatives to X
Following the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk, many companies and users turned their backs on the short messaging service known thereafter as X. For some time now, you can find RESET on both Mastodon and BlueSky, both of which are very similar to X.
While BlueSky has only been decentralised since the beginning of 2024, Mastodon has long been a prime example of decentralised services and the Fediverse. After the developer Eugen Rochko published Mastodon in 2016, the service attracted greater attention following the Twitter takeover in 2022. Today, Mastodon operates as a gGmbH from Berlin. Stefan Mey puts the number of users for 2023 at around 1.6 million.
Just like Pixelfed, Mastodon uses the ActivityPub protocol and is part of the Fediverse. The services are therefore mutually compatible.
BlueSky, on the other hand, uses a different protocol and by proxy of this, strictly speaking, does not belong to the Fediverse. However, the service is compatible with the Fediverse and its services to a limited extent.
However, there is another difference: while Mastodon and Pixelfed place a particularly strong focus on data sovereignty and the independence of companies, BlueSky has been developed more as a Twitter alternative. Although the platform is open source and decentralised, critics criticise the potential influence exerted by the developers.
PeerTube – YouTube for self-hosting
Anyone looking for a decentralised alternative to YouTube—long operated by Google—will quickly come across PeerTube. The video platform offers users the opportunity to run their own instances on their servers. Universities, for example, can offer their own PeerTube platform on which students and teachers can upload videos.
PeerTube also belongs to the Fediverse, making it interoperable with Mastodon and Pixelfed. However, as the name PeerTube already suggests, there is another special feature here.
This is because PeerTube allows users to establish a direct connection between two devices (peer-to-peer) instead of a server connection. If users want to watch a video, for example, their device establishes a direct connection to another user’s device. As peer-to-peer connections by their very nature work without a server, they are, strictly speaking, the perfect decentralised network. This is because they are particularly effective in protecting against censorship and attacks, as they function entirely without servers.
However, the distribution of peer-to-peer is problematic under copyright law in some cases. As the user’s own end device both receives and sends data, users also become distributors of the material. And in the worst case, this can have legal consequences – just like back in the days of Limewire.
Friendica, Lemmy and other alternatives
There are other decentralised services in the Fediverse that share the ActivityPub protocol. Facebook, which is also operated by Meta, has an alternative in Friendica, for example. It can be operated on its own servers thanks to open-source licences. The Lemmy platform can replace the news aggregator Reddit.
Are decentralised services also more sustainable?
Our digital footprint is naturally also increasing as we spend more and more time on social networks. In another article, we explained how you can reduce your own social media use with the One Sec app. This is advisable for the very reason that TikTok alone emits more CO2 emissions per year than Greece. At the same time, however, excessive social media consumption also leads to more climate fear.
The switch to decentralised providers therefore has two positive effects: On the one hand, the environmental impact of services on the Internet always depends on whether their operators use green servers. To this end, the Green Web Foundation launched a project at the beginning of 2025 that monitors a number of well-known domains for the use of green electricity.
With decentralised services, users have more control over where their data is stored. A community of sustainability experts can operate their Mastodon instance on green servers, for example. Furthermore, as Andy Piper from Mastodon emphasises once again, services like Mastodon are not profit-oriented.
Accordingly, Mastodon, Pixelfed and PeerTube are free of advertising, which in their entirety, consisting of advertising banners, advertising clips, the placement of trackers on websites and other mechanisms, generate a considerable amount of traffic on the internet. Added to this is the relatively recent tendency of big tech companies to use AI functions to remain competitive. However, AI models such as the GPT developed by OpenAI are extremely energy-hungry and do not necessarily bring advantages on platforms that are supposed to create “authentic human connections”.
As we have more control when switching to decentralised, open-source services, we can have a greater influence on sustainability. And because Mastodon, Pixelfed and co. also have less influence on the content, systematic climate change denial or so-called doomscrolling are less likely.
