The internet is broken. You know it, I know it, and frankly, anyone who has spent more than five minutes scrolling through a feed of rage-bait and targeted ads knows it too. But while most of us just complain about the "dead internet theory" or how creepy it is that our phones seem to eavesdrop on our grocery lists, one guy is actually trying to rewrite the entire architecture of the web. His name is Frank McCourt. He’s a billionaire, a former Dodgers owner, and the face behind a massive initiative called Project Liberty.
What is Project Liberty, exactly?
It isn't just another think tank or a tech startup. It’s a multi-billion-dollar attempt to pivot the world away from "surveillance capitalism" toward something McCourt calls a "People-First Web." If that sounds like Silicon Valley word salad, stick with me. It’s actually a pretty radical plan to take the power—and the data—away from companies like Meta and Google and hand it back to you.
The TikTok Connection: A $100 Billion Gambit
You might have seen Project Liberty in the news lately because of TikTok. Since the U.S. government passed a law requiring ByteDance to sell the app or face a ban, McCourt has been very public about his bid to buy it.
He isn't interested in just owning a viral dance app. He wants to gut it.
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McCourt’s vision is to migrate TikTok onto a decentralized protocol. Instead of TikTok owning your data, your social graph (who you know, what you like, and your history) would live on a decentralized ledger. You would own your "identity," and TikTok would just be one of many apps that you choose to let access that identity. This is the cornerstone of Project Liberty. It’s about "decoupling" the application layer from the data layer.
Think about it this way.
Right now, if you want to leave Instagram for a new app, you lose everything. Your followers, your posts, your history—it stays in Mark Zuckerberg’s vault. Project Liberty wants to make your digital life portable. You own the "keys." If you don't like how an app treats you, you pack up your data and move to a competitor. No friction. No hostage-taking.
How DSNP Actually Works (The Techy Bit)
Underneath the high-minded speeches is a real piece of software called the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP). This is the engine room.
Unlike most "Web3" projects that are obsessed with speculative coins and NFTs, DSNP is designed to be a public utility. It’s open-source. It doesn't have a native token that McCourt is trying to pump. Instead, it uses blockchain technology—specifically the Polkadot ecosystem via a "parachain" called Frequency—to record social connections without storing your private photos or messages on a public ledger.
Wait, why use a blockchain?
Scale. Most decentralized social networks, like Mastodon, struggle with "fragmentation." You're on one server, your friend is on another, and it’s a pain to find each other. By using a common protocol like DSNP, any app built on it can see the same social map. You could be on "App A" and comment on a post from "App B" because you’re both using the same underlying infrastructure.
Braxton Woodham, the co-creator of DSNP and a key figure in Project Liberty, argues that this is the only way to break the monopoly of Big Tech. If the "graph" is public and decentralized, a startup doesn't need $500 million in VC funding just to acquire users. They can just build a better interface, and the users are already there.
The Money and the Motivation
Frank McCourt has put $500 million of his own money into this. That’s a lot of "skin in the game" for a guy who could just be sitting on a beach.
Why do it?
Honestly, he talks about it like a civic duty. He often cites the mental health crisis among teens and the erosion of democracy as direct results of the current "extractive" internet model. He’s partnered with some heavy hitters to give this academic weight, including:
- Georgetown University: Home to the Massive Data Institute.
- Sciences Po in Paris: Focused on the "governance" side of things.
- Stanford University: Helping research the ethics of decentralized tech.
It’s a weird mix of old-school academia and bleeding-edge tech. McCourt isn't a "crypto bro." He’s a 70-year-old real estate mogul who seems genuinely terrified that the internet is destroying the fabric of society. He’s trying to build a digital version of the "public square"—a place that isn't owned by a corporation but is still functional for billions of people.
The Skeptics: Is This Just a Pipe Dream?
Not everyone is buying the hype. Critics point out that "decentralization" is notoriously hard to scale. Every time someone tries to build a decentralized Facebook, it ends up being a ghost town populated by tech enthusiasts and people who got banned from Twitter.
There’s also the TikTok problem. Even if McCourt raises the billions needed to buy TikTok, why would ByteDance sell to a guy who wants to dismantle their most valuable asset (the algorithm and the data)? The secret sauce of TikTok isn't just the video player; it’s the massive data set that trains the recommendation engine. If you move TikTok to Project Liberty's decentralized protocol, you might lose the very thing that makes the app addictive and successful.
Then there's the user experience. Most people don't care about "sovereign identity." They care about whether the app is fast, fun, and free. If Project Liberty makes things more complicated—like managing private keys or paying "gas fees" for posts—it’s dead on arrival. McCourt’s team insists the tech will be "invisible" to the average user, but that’s a massive engineering hurdle.
Why This Matters Right Now
We are at a tipping point. Between the AI explosion and the increasing regulation of social media in Europe and the US, the "Old Web" is creaking.
Project Liberty represents a third way.
It’s not the Chinese model of state control, and it’s not the current Silicon Valley model of corporate control. It’s an attempt at a "democratic" model. Whether it succeeds or not might depend on whether they can actually land a "big fish" like TikTok to prove the concept. If they can show that a major social network can run on a decentralized protocol without breaking, the floodgates could open.
Real-World Steps to Engage with the New Web
If you’re tired of being the product and want to see what this "New Internet" looks like, you don't have to wait for the TikTok sale. You can actually start moving your digital footprint now.
1. Check out Frequency. This is the blockchain where DSNP lives. You can see the live transactions and how apps are starting to integrate. It's not a place to "trade," but a place to observe how data is being moved.
2. Explore MeWe. This is a social network that has already started migrating its millions of users to the DSNP protocol. It’s the first real-world "stress test" for Project Liberty. By using it, you’re basically a pioneer in the decentralized social space.
3. Read the "Protocol, Not Platforms" Thesis. If you want to understand the intellectual backing of this movement, look up Mike Masnick’s work. It’s the foundational idea that McCourt is trying to fund: that social media should be a set of rules (like email/SMTP) rather than a gated garden (like Facebook).
4. Secure your digital identity. Look into "Self-Sovereign Identity" (SSI) tools. Even if you don't use Project Liberty's specific tech, learning how to manage your own digital credentials is going to be a required skill in the next five years.
The internet we have today wasn't inevitable. It was a choice made by a few developers and VCs in the early 2000s. Project Liberty is basically a "do-over" button. It’s an expensive, ambitious, and slightly crazy attempt to build an internet that treats people as citizens instead of data points. Whether McCourt is the right guy to lead that revolution is up for debate, but the protocol he’s building is undeniably one of the most important tech projects of the decade.
The era of the "Galled Garden" is under attack. Whether the wall falls or just gets a new owner remains to be seen. But for the first time in a long time, there’s a legitimate alternative on the table. Keep an eye on the TikTok headlines; the future of your data might just depend on who wins that fight.