Social media play a central role in politics, public debate, and everyday social interaction. Unlike traditional media, big tech platforms such as Meta and X use opaque algorithms to determine what content users see, without editorial responsibility or transparency. As these companies exert increasing political influence, criticism grows, along with the demand for alternatives that uphold public values, autonomy, and innovation.
From within the creative industry, decentralized platforms such as Mastodon, PeerTube, and Pixelfed have been developed. These are part of the fediverse: an open network of social media applications based on public values and open protocols. Despite these ideals, adoption and use remain limited.
To support the transition toward more successful alternatives, Waag Futurelab launched the initiative Public Nodes. In collaboration with partners, Waag investigates the conditions necessary for a shift from big tech to the fediverse. The central question is: what is needed to support designers in creating compelling, widely adopted fediverse platforms?
Public Nodes focuses on developing a transition strategy, a toolkit with validated governance and business models, and practical experimentation in Living Labs. This research is conducted in collaboration with our partners including ProcoliX, Post-X-Society and Radboud University Nijmegen.
Research in collaboration with media organizations
In June 2026, Waag’s Living Lab Open Socials was launched. Within this living lab, Waag is collaborating with Follow The Money, de Volkskrant, Nu.nl, and De Correspondent to explore new ways of using open social media. Together with the participating news organizations, we are conducting a series of experiments to investigate how open social media can be made more appealing.
The first experiment focuses on the onboarding process for open social media: how individual journalists experience their first steps and what they need to be able to use social media more effectively. The second experiment explores a so-called custom news feed—in other words, a curated timeline.
Interested in the research? Read the article by senior researcher Danny Lämmerhirt.
