This might be the most Canadian social app ever

Happy 2026 to all! It’s going to be better than 2025, right? Right?!?Hopefully so. But before we dive back into how bad things are, let’s start the new year off with a potentially good news story – which is that there’s about to be a new social media player in town, and it’s Canadian.Gander Social is targeting a first-quarter launch and is aiming to be a kinder, gentler social media platform, which is another way of saying of course it’s Canadian. And aside from trying to be better than the other bot-infested rage farms out there, Gander is also differentiating itself by laying down sovereign roots: Canadian hosting that’s free from the dictates of any foreign mad king.The company blew through its crowd-funding goals late last year by raising $1.5 million and has more than 35,000 users waiting to get onto its app, which is borrowing some of the best aspects of BlueSky, TikTok, LinkedIn and others while trying to avoid their worst pitfalls. (Full disclosure: I chipped in some bucks through that crowd-funding effort.) Chief executive and co-founder Ben Waldman joins Do Not Pass Go to discuss how Gander is going to be different from other platforms and whether the world needs another social media app in the first place.Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe