Q: Who is Northsky Social Cooperative?
A: We are a collection of web developers and community moderators who are fed up with the lack of protections for members of marginalized groups online. Many of our founding members are trans, people of color, immigrants, and members of other minority groups who rely on social networking to connect with others and make a living.
We've decided to take matters into our own hands to preserve the trans community on Bluesky from a diaspora caused by the inaction and neglect of official platform moderation. Inspired by the kind of work Rudy has done with Blacksky, and the contributions of various community moderators, we aim to create a space that is safe for trans people and by necessity all other groups with whom trans identity intersects.
We take the privacy of our cooperative members as seriously as legally possible, so you won't find a "Meet the Team" page, but you should be able to spot us yapping on Bluesky if you're active there and know where to look.
Q: What is Northsky Social, exactly?
A: Northsky Social is a project that will evolve over time, focused solely on the mission of improving the experience of members of marginalized groups online.
The first phase of Northsky Social centers around protecting and preserving the user data of members of marginalized groups. As we see attacks on trans rights escalate, we see increasingly concerning rhetoric and legislation about trans bodies being obscene or illegal. It is only a matter of time before those attacks reach our communities in the digital space. When users choose to move to Northsky Social, they will be able to maintain all their user data, but move it safely outside of the United States to our servers.
Details about next phases will be revealed in the future, but they all revolve around improving moderation tools, restoring balance to our communities with fair and communicative moderation, and preserving our ability to keep communicating safely in the face of persecution.
Q: Where is Northsky Social Cooperative?
A: Northsky Social Cooperative has attracted talented developers from all over the globe, but the Cooperative itself is based in Canada.
Q: When will Northsky Social be available?
A: The short answer is soon! We already have operational accounts hosted on our own Personal Data Server (PDS).
However, we are currently testing our infrastructure and ensuring resiliency and proper data backups and restoration to ensure we're able to be good stewards of our community's user data.
Once we're satisfied with how that system performs, we'll start rolling out invite codes so people can migrate over to our servers. We plan to grow slowly so that we can ensure both our infrastructure and our community grows healthily.
Q: How can I sign up for Northsky Social?
A: You can sign up for Northsky Social by following this link:
Q: Will I be able to keep my posts, followers, lists, etc... if I migrate to Northsky?
A: Yes! We've built a migration website and a standalone migration tool that we will be sharing in the coming weeks to assist in making the migration process as painless and safe as possible.
Part of our strategy to maintain our communities is to avoid the problem of "but, I'll have to start over!" that comes with changing platforms. When you migrate, you keep all your existing bluesky connections, posts, lists, feeds, etc...
The only thing you might need to change is your handle. If you have an @bsky.social handle you will have to change it to a @northsky.social handle. If you have a custom handle, you can keep it!
Other than that, your bluesky experience won't change much yet, aside from your data being hosted securely on our servers outside of the US.
Q: What if I want to leave Northsky, or my account gets banned?
A: We're not going to hold your data hostage. If things don't work out, we'll happily help you migrate your data to another PDS, provided you didn't get banned for uploading something heinous and illegal.
There is one catch however, as of right now, you cannot migrate back to Bluesky's PDS from an outside PDS. You will have to find another host (of which a small number exist currently) or host your own PDS.
Q: Why build Northsky?
A: It's become clear to our members that the wellbeing of marginalized communities online is not only being neglected, but is actively under attack now.
We started contemplating this project after a petition to "enforce Bluesky's moderation guidelines equally" gained over 26,000 signatures and was ignored by Bluesky Trust and Safety. We were all deeply disappointed in this lack of response, and the subsequent unfollowing of every trans person by the Head of Trust and Safety. We saw the writing on the wall.
Ever since the inaguration, we've seen weekly and sometimes daily attacks on trans rights, immigrant rights, and attacks on communities of color. Tech corporations are complicit in complying with these attacks on our rights. We've seen Meta strip protections from LGBTQ people, allowing them to be called mentally ill on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. We've seen wave after wave of people leaving X for Bluesky due to the increasingly bigoted and fascist rhetoric promoted on that app.
We cannot count on Big Tech to have our backs. The Bluesky developers in their wisdom open-sourced ATProtocol and the major infrastructure pieces of Bluesky so that they could be forked and federated with.Thanks to their prescience, our group has been able to get up to speed quickly and deploy a plan that should help keep us one step ahead of those who seek to harass, abuse, and erase our communities.
Q: How are you going to make things safer?
A: Aside from hosting your data in a safer location, we're also going to be building out a community moderation team and using and improving the tools available on Bluesky and ATProto to provide a better experience for our users in the long run.
Q: How are you going to handle internal community discourse?
A: As fairly and charitably as possible. We will have more details forthcoming about our moderation approach, principles, and our plans for new tools and capabilities in the near future. It's a big topic and deserves its own manifesto.
What we can say for now is, our community has been going through it lately, we know. Discourse after discourse has created rifts and schisms and rivalries (to put it kindly), and we're hoping the move to Northsky Social, for those who want to take it, can be an opportunity to start fresh, come together, and heal.
That being said, we know there are literal bad actors, not just with folks with bad takes or uncharitable interpretations of other people's words, but legitimate predators and organization wreckers. Northsky Social will not jeopardize the safety of our community members by allowing known bad actors to join.
Another thing we can commit to, is to clearly communicate why certain moderation decisions are made. This kind of transparency has been lacking from the Bluesky Safety team, and we're confident we can do better. Why? Because our moderation remit is for marginalized people BY marginalized people. And when we make mistakes, and we probably will, we'll own up to them, because that's how we learn and grow.
Q: Can I donate to the cause?
A: Not yet, but we will be able to accept donations soon. They will likely not be tax-deductible at first, but as we are a non-profit cooperative, we will be able to achieve Charitable status in Canada. We will be sure to let everyone know when we can accept donations.
Q: Can I become a member of the Coop?
A: We do have a path to cooperative membership, which involves spending an amount of time volunteering as either a developer or a community moderator, applying and being accepted by the member group, and paying a $30CAD member fee (one time, and waivable for low-income folks). If you want to pursue this path, please consider starting by Volunteering.
Q: How can I volunteer to help?
A: We're not accepting volunteers at this moment, but we will be sure to update this FAQ with opportunities as soon as we're ready. For now, you can register as a volunteer to let us know you're interested, and we'll get back in touch when we're ready!
Q: I'm press, how can I get in touch?
A: Feel free to e-mail us at [ press at northskysocial dot com] and send us your questions. A member of the cooperative will get back to you as soon as we can. You can also find our account on Bluesky: @transrights.northsky.social
Q: Are you accepting investors?
A: No, but we are accepting donations. We will not be giving up ownership shares to investors as part of our commitment to operating democratically, staying focused on our mission of safety, and owning our operations and infrastructure collectively.
Q: Can you answer my question too?
A: Sure, if this FAQ is missing something, e-mail us at [ faq at northskysocial dot com ] and send us your question. You can also find our account on Bluesky: @transrights.northsky.social
