Pixelfed, a decentralized and ad-free Instagram alternative, now has apps on iOS and Android, as reported by TechCrunch. The iOS app launched today, while the Android app launched on January 10th.
The platform is seeing a surge in popularity following Meta’s announcement last week that it would be drastically changing its content moderation policies; over the weekend, Pixelfed said that it’s seeing “unprecedented levels of traffic” to the pixelfed.social server and was working to increase resources.
Pixelfed was also in the news this week because some users claimed that Meta randomly blocked links to the site they shared on Facebook. According to Engadget, Meta blocked the Pixelfed links by mistake and is now reinstating the posts.
The creator of Pixelfed, Daniel Supernault, also launched a decentralized version of TikTok last October called Loops. With TikTok facing a ban in the US and the fallout from Meta’s content moderation changes, Pixelfed and Loops offer other options for people to jump ship to.