N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM – Reclaim the Internet | Open Source Alternative to Social Media

INTRODUCTION

N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM is not another social media platform, but a way for persons and organisations to own their means of communication and publication while remaining connected to the existing internet. It introduces no new protocol and no new standard; it simply combines technologies that have been open and public for decades into a coherent system for publishing, archiving and communicating.

The purpose is not to replace the internet. The purpose is to use the internet as it was designed: as a distributed network of independent publishers. The purpose is not to create another platform. The purpose is to make platforms optional.

ABOUT THE INTERNET

The internet developed as a distributed system. Independent websites published information, hyperlinks connected them, email carried conversations directly from person to person, RSS distributed new publications, and search engines made everything discoverable. No single organisation controlled the whole. Together these simple technologies formed an open publishing infrastructure that belonged to no one and could be used by anyone.

CONCENTRATION OF POWER

Many of these functions have gradually been concentrated inside a small number of proprietary platforms, where publishing, archives, communication, advertising, analytics and distribution now exist within the same commercial systems. Communication became easier. Dependency increased. Power gathered in very few hands: most often American or Chinese privately owned companies. It is unhealthy, and unsustainable, for a democracy that private interests hold such influence over its public conversation.

Platforms are one-way doors. Facebook, for example, removed its RSS feeds years ago: publications flow easily in, but there is no open way out, and the archive stays behind.

Because most platforms are financed by advertising and behavioural data, attention itself became a commodity. Algorithms optimise engagement rather than understanding: conflict travels further than agreement, and emotional reactions travel further than reflection. A post on such a platform reaches only a small fraction of the people who chose to follow you. Real communication between persons is deprioritised and placed outside your control, while the feed fills with advertising and AI-generated noise. Public debate increasingly takes place inside systems whose economic interests differ from the public interest, and many researchers have linked intensive social media use, particularly among young people, with increased risks of anxiety, loneliness and depression.

N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM does not attempt to build better algorithms. It attempts to reduce dependence upon them. It has no like buttons and no counters: it is built for collaboration and sharing, not for competition and profit. You compose your own news feed from real, trustworthy sources: the persons, projects and publications that are actually relevant to you, and you see them in the order things actually happened. You define the "algorithm" yourself.

allItems.sort(function(a, b) { return b.ts - a.ts; });

The complete "algorithm" of N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM: newest first. Platforms guard their ranking algorithms as trade secrets; ours is one line, and you may read it.

POSITION

Communication is infrastructure, and whoever controls the infrastructure influences communication. N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM does not oppose existing social media; it opposes unnecessary dependency.

Like most persons and organisations, we are caught in this dependency ourselves. This manual is not written from outside the trap, but from inside it. We still announce our publications on the platforms we criticise; the difference is that the publications, the archive and the relationship between publisher and reader no longer live there.

The platforms have one real advantage: they are where most people already are. This creates a dilemma. A person who leaves alone risks isolation, so the transition to open, decentralised communication must be collective. Every person and organisation that begins to publish through open standards makes the next departure easier.

N55 knows very well that existing platforms are easier to use. N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM exists to show that there is a more beautiful alternative: communication owned by the people communicating.

Existing platforms may continue to function as notice boards, but the original publication, the archive, and the relationship between publisher and reader should remain in the hands of the people creating them.

STRATEGY

In judo, you do not meet force with force. You borrow the opponent's strength and let it work for you. N55 has often used this method. N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM uses it twice.

The platforms' strength is their reach: they are where most people already are. We do not fight that reach. We use it. Every announcement posted on a platform borrows its distribution to point away from it, back to the free and open internet. The platforms deliver the invitation to leave them.

AI is an even greater concentration of power than social media: fewer companies, larger machines, higher walls. We use that strength too. The code that realises this system was written in collaboration with Claude Fable, an AI built by one of the large American corporations. The concentrated technology was used to produce small, readable, open files that hand the means of communication back to persons. The thinking, the choices and the responsibility remain with persons.

The strength was already there. It only had to change direction.

OPEN STANDARDS

N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM combines existing technologies rather than inventing new ones. HTML structures information, PHP generates publications, JavaScript provides interaction, RSS distributes them, hyperlinks connect independent publishers, email enables direct communication, search engines make information discoverable, and local databases keep everything under the owner's control. Each component performs one simple task. Together they form an autonomous publishing system, and because every part is an open standard, every part can be replaced.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an open standard that has existed for decades. Syndication simply means distributing publications from one source to many subscribers. Blogs, newspapers, magazines, podcasts, museums, universities and open source projects offer RSS feeds today.

THE SYSTEM

Publisher. RSS. Reader. Comments. Archive Importer. Subscriptions. Notice Board. Anonymous Statistics. Backup. Directory.

Each module may be used independently; together they allow persons and organisations to publish, archive, distribute, discuss and preserve information from their own websites while remaining connected to the wider internet.

The Reader stores subscriptions locally in the browser, and a built-in feed finder can often locate a website's feed from the ordinary website address alone. Nothing is sent to any server: the feed list can be exported as a backup and moved to any other RSS reader at any time. No one is locked in.

Comments belong with the publication: they live on the publisher's own website, together with the work they concern, and the Reader links every post directly to its conversation. The Archive Importer converts downloaded social media archives into ordinary publications, so that histories held inside platforms become part of the archive again. The Notice Board posts links to existing social media while the original publication remains on the owner's website.

The Directory contains only the information required to discover independent publishers. It hosts no content and creates no social network, and joining is automatic: any person with a website and a working RSS feed can join, and no one approves or rejects applicants. Alongside the Directory, every publisher can maintain OTHER FEEDS, a list of public feeds they suggest, which readers can follow with a single click.

{ "name": "N55", "description": "Art collective working with art, architecture and sustainable design.", "website": "https://www.n55.dk", "feed": "https://www.n55.dk/NEWS/feed.php?feed=n55", "country": "DK", "joined": "2026-07-05" }

A publisher in the Directory: a few readable lines in a public file. No profile, no account, no enclosure.

HOW TO USE

Publish on your own website. Offer an RSS feed. Subscribe directly to the publishers you choose. Import older archives automatically, for example from Facebook. Use social media to announce publications rather than to store them. Keep the original archive under your own control.

N55 already uses this system for its own publications. The software described in this manual is the software currently publishing N55 NEWS. It is not a prototype or a proposal for the future; it is a working system in daily use.

Open N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM here: www.n55.dk/NEWS/reader.php

HOW TO OFFER AN RSS FEED

Most website systems already generate an RSS feed automatically: on WordPress it exists at /feed, on Blogger at /feeds/posts/default, and nothing needs to be installed. A hand-built website can offer a feed as a single XML file, updated whenever something new is published. N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM generates its feed automatically with every publication.

Announce the feed. A single line in the HTML head of a page makes it visible to feed readers:

A feed that is not announced cannot be found automatically.

COPY IT

The software consists of a small number of readable files. It may be copied, modified, simplified and extended, and because it is based upon open standards, every part may be replaced without changing the principles of the system.

The software is released under the MIT licence and provided as it is, without warranty of any kind: every person is the publisher of, and responsible for, their own installation.

AUTONOMY

Open standards distribute power; proprietary platforms concentrate it. N55 SOCIAL MEDIUM combines existing open standards into a practical system that redistributes the means of communication and publication. The website becomes the original source. RSS distributes new publications. Hyperlinks reconnect independent publishers, email reconnects publishers and readers, search engines make independent publications discoverable, and social media become optional notice boards.

We encourage everyone to help reclaim the internet. One way is to compose your own news feed instead of relying on algorithm-driven platforms. Another is to publish your own website and offer an RSS feed, announced clearly, making your work freely available through an open standard rather than locking it inside proprietary platforms.

The archive remains where it belongs: with the person or organisation that created it.

RECLAIM THE INTERNET.

A centralised network. Every connection passes through one centre. The centre controls communication, visibility and access.