Why Mozilla is betting on a decentralized social networking future

Mozilla is investing in the fediverse, a network of decentralized social apps such as Mastodon that communicate over the ActivityPub protocol, on the view that consumers want trust, safety and power not centralized in Big Tech. Mozilla Senior Director of Content Carolyn O'Hara says the company is not motivated by shareholder earnings or VC returns, and it is running a private beta of Mozilla.social, a Mastodon server with hundreds of users and no set public launch date. Mozilla plans heavy moderation, a Discover feed built partly on its Pocket recommendation tools, and outreach to publishers, and it has financially backed the Mastodon app maker Mammoth.