An “intentional-by-design” social platform has launched in Canada.
Founded by Vancouver entrepreneur Natalie Boll, Tribela has officially been released in Canada following a beta run in dozens of countries.
Boll argues that being offline can be “socially isolating in today’s world.”
“As a Canadian mom, I have lived experience of what it’s like to ban your children on social media,” she says. “My child faced harm.”
But after pulling her family off devices, Boll eventually realized that “being connected online doesn’t have to be harmful.”
Boll’s approach was informed by whistleblower disclosures from former Facebook data scientist Frances Haugen showing how social media companies know products pose risks to users and yet did nothing about it.
Which meant that, perhaps, something could be done about it.
Tribela, posits Boll, “brings the good parts of social media between overload and withdrawal.”
The startup aims to provide “a space between digital detox and doomscrolling.”
Noting that Canada is in talks to ban social media for younger users, Tribela “offers a new design to change the narrative,” according to Boll.
Incubated at Oxford University, Tribela was developed through discussions with academic and technical advisors as well as interviews with families and even analyses of court cases against social media firms—all in order to “identify how platform design can meaningfully reduce harm.”
Tribela’s customizable feeds give users control through protective moderation combined with AI and human review, presenting content without performance metrics like visible likes or follower counts. The platform’s intentional design also includes clear stopping points and no infinite scroll.
With $800,000 with pre-seed funding, Boll says Tribela is now accelerating product development.
The company has also launched Tribela Labs, which will function as an in-house AI moderation and integrity system designed to be licensed to other communities as a proactive layer to help reduce harmful content at scale.
Tribela also started the Tribela Creator fund, which supports original projects, paying creators across genres to produce work “without relying on algorithms or performance pressure.”
Dr. Jun Zhao, Official Fellow in AI at Oxford University’s Reuben College and an advisor to Tribela, notes that the startup is not reinventing the wheel: “the technologies required to achieve these goals have long existed.”
However, “implementing them responsibly, without over-restricting children’s access while still providing sufficient protection and enabling exploration, remains a significant challenge,” Zhao commented.
Tribela “has embraced this principle of protection-through-agency from the very outset of its design and vision,” said Zhao. “I am impressed by what Natalie has achieved.”
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