Darcy will allow everyone to run their own federated social media instance – without having to worry about technology, moderation or legal compliance, because Darcy will take care of that for you – if you want!

Social Media should be better: Not a way to manipulate you into viewing ads, but to share important moments with people of your choosing.

To be able to do so, there should be a well-researched interaction model that isn't focused on driving ad impressions that has a beautiful and accessible interface. It should be well-moderated, in a transparent way. And it shouldn't be owned by a central company, but decentralized and open source, so you control and own your data.

Darcy will not rely on volunteer hosters and moderators. Adequately reviewing sensitive content, dealing with software patches and ensuring that no single cute cat picture gets lost is actually work. And that work should be paid, so that you can rest assured that these people don't burn out.

Any civic space will invite all sorts. We are not naive, and we know that the need for content moderation is inevitable. It helps keep the community safe and fight off spam. But we believe that the community should decide how content moderation happens.

By asking users to pay for the services they receive, we ensure that they stay in control of the communities they build.

To be totally clear: We want the community to be in control of the processes that decide what content is allowed.