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    GANDER | Building Better Social Media for Canada

    Sharing is SO MUCH APPRECIATED!

    They said ‘Don’t read the comments.’ I said ‘Hold my maple syrup’ โ€” and started building a platform where you actually can.

    TL;DR: Social media is a dumpster fire. Between the bots, the ragebait, and the platforms that profit from division, itโ€™s hard not to feel like weโ€™ve in a completely different dimension. So I stopped hoping someone else would fix itโ€”and decided to build something better, right here in Canada.

    blog-how-gander-social-started

    I feel like someone shook up the multiverse in 2025, and weโ€™ve ended up on a pretty weird timeline.

    • Canadaโ€™s been trending for all the wrong reasons
    • The US is abandoning all pretence as a symbol of democracy and freedom
    • The disinformation machine has gone into overdrive for the Canadian elections (and beyond)

    It wouldnโ€™t surprise me if this year is studied alongside the Mandela Effect some day.

    But as confusing and surreal as itโ€™s been, itโ€™s actually not hard to see how we got here. From the time cable news went partisan, weโ€™ve seen increasing wealth disparities, rising costs inโ€ฆ everything, and the complete takeover of social media echo chambers financed by rage and manipulation.

    Once Trudeau stepped down and an election was on the horizon, it REALLY started to bug me. I tried not to engage. And by “tried”, I mean I totally didn’t. I found myself spiralling into comment threads that were just… shocking.


    And then came Elbows Up Canadaโ€™s social channels.

    Inspired by Mike Myerโ€™s โ€œCanadaโ€™s not for saleโ€ appearance on SNL, my buddy Peter Wall started Elbows Up as a way to unite Canadians in response to Trumpโ€™s threats.

    Over the span of just a few days, he quickly gathered dozens of people who helped organize everything from permits and PA systems, to speakers and bands for the first Elbowโ€™s Up rally on Parliament Hill.

    The groupโ€™s values?

    • Non-Partisanย โ€“ Open to all who believe in Canadaโ€™s future.
    • Positive & Optimisticย โ€“ Focused on solutions, not division.
    • Family-Friendlyย โ€“ Welcoming for all ages.
    • Empoweringย โ€“ Encouraging action and engagement.
    • Polite but Angryย โ€“ Passionate, but always respectful.
    • Peacefulย โ€“ Advocacy with civility.

    The event was fun, hopeful, downright Canadian, and over 1000 people showed up.

    On short notice, in Ottawa. It was incredibly impressive.

    I played an ultra-minor role in organizing the event, but mainly, I took photos and managed the groupโ€™s socials. I filled our feeds with photos of Canadians of all ages, races, and genders standing together, smiling, singing, holding placards with messages of strength and unity.


    So of course the trolls showed up.

    It was mind-boggling and terribly frustrating. Here we were, expressing some of the most wholesomely Canadian values one could hope for, and our feeds were being infested by rage-baiting parasites.

    As if that wasnโ€™t bad enough, the platforms had nothing to offer to mitigate it. No tools to push back, no real way to set the record straight. Just delete, hide, or get dragged into a fight.

    And between the billionaire social-tech set going silent on Trumpโ€™s threats, Canadian digital infrastructure reliant overwhelmingly on Silicon Valley, and the disinformation/rage machine growing out of control, I started to wonder if we couldnโ€™t reset the timeline by going back to pagers, fax machines, and phones the size of a small child.

    And thatโ€™s when things shifted. I realized I could keep watching it happen, and do nothing, or I could do something nuts.


    I decided to do something nuts.

    That night, I started researching with a singular goal.

    Could we build a new social platform? One that respected privacy, that didnโ€™t algorithmically reward outrage, and maybe made it easierโ€”not harderโ€”to be decent to each other?

    And the answer was, yes. Yes we can.

    Better still, we can create social media that is:

    • Built and hosted in Canada
    • Owned by Canadians
    • Ethical by design
    • Secure, modern, and fun

    You know, a platform that respects the same social values Canadians expect IRL.

    And then the name came to me: Gander. Inspired by a town renowned for its compassionโ€”and by a bird known for community, instinct and resilience.


    So now, all thatโ€™s left to do isโ€ฆ everything.

    Iโ€™ve been designing digital things for 25 years now. Iโ€™ve had agencies and SAAS products forever, and Iโ€™ve worked for bootstrapped startups and others with many millions of dollars in runway.

    In that time, I’ve done it all. Strategy, branding, marketing, UXโ€ฆ I even write code (though more competent developers would disagree).

    But something of this magnitude? Nope. This is new ground.

    So Iโ€™ve gathered a teamโ€”passionate Canadians who share in the vision, and have taken Gander a step further by introducing ideas around community-driven design and consent-based interactions.

    • Weโ€™ve designed our prototype
    • Weโ€™ve built our proof of concept
    • Weโ€™re putting together a suite of Canadian and/or open-source, self-hosted operational tools
    • Weโ€™ve launched our social media channels and have started postingย (probably why youโ€™re here).

    And, weโ€™ve kicked off our Early Access Program to build interest, find supporters, and invite feedbackโ€ฆ from folks like you.

    I hope youโ€™ll join us.

    Team Gander

    Sharing is SO MUCH APPRECIATED!

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