This morning when I was scrolling through my Threads timeline, I came across a post from Amber Mac announcing she was part of a group of backers of a new social media app.
Great – just what we need, a new Social Media app!
But – this one actually sounds interesting. At least to me as a Canadian.
Amber is backing Gander, a new Canadian-made and owned social network. Built on the AT-protocol (the same back-end protocol as Bluesky), Gander will allow people to post text and videos and decide if they want them pushed out to the wider AT-protocol sites, or for them just to remain in Canada as part of Gander only.
There are two main reasons for Gander to exist as far as I can tell.
First, with all of the ‘Canada as the 51st state’ nonsense, is the (real or perceived) threat of US-based Social Media sites pulling the plug from, or shutting the doors to, Canadians as some sort of retaliatory or protectionist measure. While I highly doubt it would ever come to this, as more eyeballs equals more money for social media companies, regardless of where it’s users are located, the fact that this is even a remote possibility lends some validity to this reason to exist.
Second – and this may be just me reading into the announcement – is the general perception that overall Canadians are just nice, and wouldn’t it be great if we could just have our own little nice corner of social media for ourselves. However, unfortunately, we all know some ‘not nice’ Canadians, and how Gander will be able to keep the peace and positivity – even among Canucks – remains to be seen.
It seems like Gander will not be exclusive to Canadians (at least not in the long-term), so I am not sure how the ‘evil doers’ will be excluded in the long run as well, but I guess that’s another problem for another day.
Despite the potential hurdles, since the decline of Twitter, I am on the lookout for a social ‘home’, and while Bluesky and Threads definitely have something to offer, I’m still not 100% loving either one.
I will definitely give Gander, well, a Gander, and see what it’s all about once it opens to the public later this year. Being part of Bluesky’s network should definitely help, but I’m not entirely optimistic that we’ll ever be truly able to create that ‘social watercooler’ feel of Twitter’s early days. Still, Gander promises to be much better than the toxic waste dump that Twitter has devolved into.
At the very least, it should be a much more polite and nice space to vent.