Openbook was the result of a funding campaign backed by a team lead by Phillip Zimmermann, creator of PGP, the world’s most popular email encryption package, and Jaya Baloo, the chief information officer of Dutch telecom company KPN. The creator and CEO is one Joel Hernandez, who says he had always dreamed of making a Facebook alternative and was encouraged by the Cambridge Analytica scandal to get moving.  Hernandez told the Financial Times that he wants a more “joyful” platform.

“It is really about building a social network that respects the privacy of its users, that’s the main driver for me. But we realised that if we really wanted to succeed, we really needed to bring more to the table, we did not just want to build a Facebook clone,” he said. Ultimately, Openbook will have a Marketplace, which will allow it to be independent, but without taking adverts.