A safe, open social home for real life

A safe, open social home for real life TouchGrass is a social network for real-life context: friends, circles, profiles, posts, photos, albums, recommendations, and writing that should not disappear into an addictive feed. It is not anti-social media. It is pro-social software: built for connection, memory, safety, and choice. That means intentional audiences, fewer engagement traps, and a serious path toward portability and the open web. Some parts of that are available today. Some are partial, experimental, or planned. TouchGrass should be judged by what is shipped, what is clearly marked as in progress, and whether people have a real path out of platform lock-in. Why TouchGrass made this choice Most social platforms are built around attention first. They optimize for time spent, repeat checking, public comparison, and growth loops. That can make people post for the feed instead of for the people they actually care about. TouchGrass starts from a different question: what should social software feel like when it is designed around real life? Real life has different kinds of relationships. A close friend, a wider friend group, a hobby circle, a family member, and a public reader are not the same audience. A useful social network should not force every update into one giant room. Real life also has memory. Some posts are throwaway. Some are worth keeping. Photos, albums, recommendations, and longer writing can become part of a person’s place on the web, not just something pushed through a timeline and forgotten. And real life needs exits. People should not have to treat one platform as a permanent cage. TouchGrass is built with an open-web direction: portability, federation, and protocol work are part of the product philosophy. That does not mean every protocol feature is fully shipped today. It means the product is being shaped around choice rather than lock-in. What TouchGrass does today TouchGrass centers people and intentional audiences. You can think in terms of friends and circles, not only followers. Public, friends-only, and circles-based visibility are core parts of the product direction, because different updates belong in different places. A public post can be for the open web. A friends post can be for people you know. A circle post can be for a smaller context. Profiles are treated as places, not just identity cards attached to a feed. A profile can hold posts, longform writing, photos, albums, and recommendations. The goal is to make a person’s social presence easier to revisit and understand, instead of reducing everything to whatever was most recently boosted. TouchGrass also avoids several common engagement traps. It does not center viral video. It does not use an algorithmic feed as the main social engine. It avoids public like-count competition, infinite scroll loops, and design patterns that turn social life into a scoreboard. That does not mean TouchGrass removes people, personality, or discovery. It means the product is trying to remove the loops that make people feel trapped. TouchGrass also has a strong open-web and portability direction. Federation, ATProto and the wider Atmosphere, Solid, ActivityPods, and private sharing are important areas of exploration and product planning. The exact status differs by feature. Some work is shipped, some is partial, some is experimental, and some is planned. The safest place to check what is real today is the feature status page. Limits / what not to overclaim Open does not mean everything is public. Public sharing, private sharing, portability, and federation are separate ideas. A post can be intended for a limited audience while the broader product still supports open-web principles. Private sharing also has real limits. TouchGrass can provide audience controls, but no social network can promise that a recipient will not screenshot, copy, forward, misuse, or describe what they saw. Private posts should not be described as impossible to leak. They are audience-controlled, not magically uncopyable. Portability and federation should also be described carefully. TouchGrass is built with an open-web direction, and it is serious about reducing platform lock-in. But not every protocol direction is fully shipped. When talking about ATProto, Atmosphere, Solid, ActivityPods, federation, or private sharing, always check the current feature status. TouchGrass is also not trying to be everything. It is not built for viral video, influencer growth, public popularity contests, or engagement-at-all-costs. That is a product choice, not a missing growth trick. FAQ Is TouchGrass anti-social media? No. TouchGrass is anti-trap, not anti-people. It is for social software that helps people keep up with real friends, write posts worth saving, share photos, make recommendations, and choose the right audience. Is TouchGrass an open social network? Yes, but with an important caveat: open does not mean “everything is public.” TouchGrass supports an open-web direction through portability and protocol work, while also treating private and limited-audience sharing as separate product needs. Check feature status for what is shipped, partial, experimental, or planned. Does TouchGrass have an algorithmic feed? TouchGrass does not center an algorithmic feed as the main social engine. It is designed without addictive feed mechanics such as infinite scroll loops, viral video incentives, and public like-count competition. Can I choose who sees my posts? Audience control is central to TouchGrass. The product is built around public, friends, and circles visibility. As with any social tool, audience controls reduce unwanted exposure but cannot prevent screenshots, copying, remote-server behavior, or recipient misuse. Can I leave TouchGrass without losing everything? Portability is part of the product direction. TouchGrass is being built with exit doors instead of platform lock-in, but the exact status depends on the feature. Use the feature status page for the most accurate current state. Related TouchGrass pages See what you can do: /what-you-can-do Learn about non-addictive social media: /non-addictive-social-media Check feature status: /status/features Last updated: 15 May 2026 Language: English Proofreading notes: Canonical/source-language draft. Uses the approved lead positioning and avoids presenting all open-web work as fully shipped. Check final URL before scheduling.