In the year of our meme lord 2025, social media sucks.
And social media has sucked for some time, but this year things have taken a turn: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg thinks the solution to the loneliness problem his company helped create is AI friends, and both Meta and OpenAI have launched apps mostly for AI-generated video slop.
“It’s one thing to say ‘let’s do this in a sovereign way.’ It is a whole other to actually do it.”
Ben Waldman
Gander Social
But what if there was a better way? Perhaps a more Canadian way?
Gander Social is attempting to do something that seemed inconceivable six months ago: build a Canadian social network.
The very idea prompts a slew of interesting questions. What does sovereign social media look like? How Canadian would it be? What would prevent Gander from devolving into every other social network?
On this week’s episode of The BetaKit Podcast, I pose these questions to Gander CEO Ben Waldman and many more. Given the app is preparing for a closed beta launch later this month—alongside a crowdfunding campaign through FrontFundr—it was very interesting to learn which questions Walman has answers to and which he doesn’t.
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One area Waldman was able to speak to in detail, however, was identity verification. Gander intends to handle this fraught topic in the most Canadian way possible, leveraging core tech built by Interac and Canada Post. It’s a solution that might help endear the fledgling social network to its core user base.
But will draping itself in the Canadian flag help Gander navigate the cold start problem all social networks face at launch, or the enshittification problem all tech faces after it successfully scales?
Let’s dig in.
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The BetaKit Podcast is presented by The Cyber Challenge: Your pathway to new sales, industry connections, and non-dilutive funding.
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If you’re ready to scale, refine, and be a leader in cybersecurity innovation, apply today at www.thecyberchallenge.ca.
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Feature Image courtesy Gander Social. Recorded and edited at Toronto Podcasts.