As X shuts down Communities, Acorn debuts an alternative that puts creators in control

A new initiative named Acorn has been unveiled, offering organizations and creators a platform to establish their own online communities, stepping away from the constraints of conventional social media networks like Instagram and X. Utilizing the same foundational technology that powers the decentralized app Bluesky, Acorn allows communities to design personalized homepages, create onboarding packs for newcomers, and tailor their feeds along with moderation tools. Originating from Blacksky, a company dedicated to developing decentralized social media tools based on the AT Protocol, Acorn aims to provide a safer online environment particularly for the Black Twitter community. This effort includes forking the Bluesky platform, crafting custom moderation services, and building a unique implementation of the AT Protocol, alongside various technological innovations. With Acorn, Blacksky is extending these resources to various communities eager to establish their own spaces in the open social web. This shift is particularly timely given X's recent termination of its Communities feature, which has left many users seeking new alternatives for group management. At its launch, Acorn offers a comprehensive suite of tools designed to facilitate community engagement. These include features for onboarding new members, personalizing feeds, managing moderation, and analyzing community growth metrics. Similar to Bluesky's “Starter Packs,” Acorn enables communities to curate their own starter packs, enhancing the onboarding experience for newcomers. The platform incorporates reputation systems to help communities recognize and manage their members, utilizing custom badges and awards, alongside tools for moderating bots and trolls. Communities can also define their own moderation policies and access tailored tools to manage reporting and account actions, such as banning users or removing posts. Creators can construct feeds that prioritize topics relevant to their members and organize information under various tabs for announcements or resources. As the community expands, built-in analytics provide insights into member growth, feed activity, and engagement trends, allowing for effective community management. Acorn's tools can be deployed on individual domains, with pricing structured to fit the unique needs of each community. Some organizations may wish to utilize comprehensive tools, including the option to operate their own Personal Data Server (PDS), while others may prefer a streamlined version of Blacksky’s community client. Pricing typically ranges from $100 to $150 monthly, with plans to transition to a tiered Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model that scales according to community size and required features. Acorn has already attracted interest from AT Protocol-based communities such as Latinsky and Medsky, as well as from a filmmaker community known as The Invite. The platform is actively engaging with media companies and nonprofits, and interested users can join a waitlist via its website. This toolkit arrives at a critical juncture as social media platforms face increased regulation globally, alongside rising user skepticism towards tech giants that prioritize advertising profits over user satisfaction. Compounding this issue is a wave of automated bans from platforms like Facebook and Instagram, which have resulted in users losing their accounts without recourse, prompting many to consider alternative solutions like Acorn.