Jack Dorsey Invests $10 Million in Open-Source Social Media Collective

Jack Dorsey, CEO of Block and co-founder of Twitter, has invested $10 million in a new nonprofit collective called "and Other Stuff," which focuses on developing open-source, decentralized social media tools. The group, described as a "community of hackers," includes early Twitter employee Evan Henshaw-Plath and creators of other open protocols like Cashu, and aims to support the Nostr protocol—an open and decentralized social networking system that Dorsey has championed since leaving Twitter and Bluesky. In addition to Nostr, the collective plans to experiment with other protocols such as ActivityPub, which powers Mastodon, and build various apps including Shakespeare, an AI-assisted Nostr app builder, voice note app heynow, private chat White Noise, and social community +chorus. Dorsey has criticized traditional social platforms for becoming too corporate and advertiser-dependent, stating Twitter should have been built as a public protocol rather than a company, and sees this initiative as a way to foster user freedom and openness without centralized control. The collective also aims to create a "Social Media Bill of Rights" to promote privacy, user control, and transparency in future platforms. This initiative coincides with the launch of a podcast, revolution.social, where Dorsey and Henshaw-Plath discuss their vision for open-source social media and the technological foundations of their work.