A place where safety and civility aren't afterthoughts but foundational principles
In a moment when digital life feels increasingly fractured and impersonal, a small Ontario news organization is attempting something quietly ambitious: building a social network rooted not in engagement metrics, but in the rhythms of actual community life. Village Media, which operates local newsrooms across Ontario, is launching SPACES — a platform designed to reconnect neighbors with one another and with the places they share. It is, at its heart, a wager that people still want to belong somewhere real.
- Mainstream social networks have left many users feeling more divided and disconnected than ever, creating an opening for something fundamentally different.
- Village Media is stepping into that opening with SPACES, a locally-controlled social network that explicitly rejects algorithmic manipulation and engagement-at-all-costs design.
- The platform's credibility rests on Village Media's existing roots — reporters and editors already embedded in Ontario communities who understand what actually matters to the people there.
- A waitlist is forming and a public rollout is expected later in 2024, but the platform's survival will hinge on whether users are willing to migrate away from the networks where their social lives already live.
- The stakes are real: a principled platform with no audience is still a failure, and Village Media must convince enough people that the friction of switching is worth the promise of something better.
Village Media, the Ontario-based company behind SooToday and a network of local newsrooms, is launching SPACES — a social network built from the ground up around genuine community connection rather than algorithmic engagement. CEO Jeff Elgie recently outlined the vision on the Inside the Village podcast: a place to connect with neighbors, discover local events, and engage with the people and places that shape daily life, free from the corporate logic that drives mainstream platforms.
The timing is deliberate. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have spent years amplifying outrage and division while remaining indifferent to the wellbeing of any particular community. SPACES is designed as an antidote — a platform where safety and civility are foundational, not cosmetic. What gives the project unusual credibility is that it's being built by an organization with actual institutional knowledge of the communities it serves. Village Media's reporters and editors already understand what matters to these towns, and that proximity is meant to shape how the platform grows.
The Inside the Village podcast, hosted by Scott Sexsmith and Michael Friscolanti, has become the public-facing vehicle for explaining SPACES to an audience that already cares about local journalism. A waitlist is open as the platform nears launch. But the hardest question remains unanswered: will enough people leave the networks where their friends already gather to make SPACES viable? Social platforms live or die by adoption, and Village Media is betting that frustration with the status quo runs deep enough to bring people through the door.
Village Media, the Ontario-based news organization behind SooToday and a chain of local newsrooms across the province, is betting that people are hungry for something different online. The company is launching SPACES, a social network built from the ground up to be a gathering place for genuine local connection—the kind that doesn't rely on algorithmic feeds designed to maximize engagement at the expense of civility.
The project has been years in development. Jeff Elgie, who leads Village Media as CEO, recently sat down to discuss the platform on the Inside the Village podcast, walking through the thinking behind SPACES and what it will look like when it goes live later this year. The pitch is straightforward: a place where you can connect with neighbors, discover local events, learn about community traditions, and engage with the people and places that actually shape your daily life. No corporate algorithm deciding what you see. No engagement-at-all-costs business model. One hundred percent community-powered.
The timing reflects a broader frustration with mainstream social networks. For years, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have dominated how people share information and stay connected. But those platforms have become increasingly fractious, their algorithms often amplifying outrage and division. They're also owned by distant corporations with little stake in any particular community's wellbeing. SPACES is positioned as an antidote—a platform where safety and civility aren't afterthoughts but foundational principles.
What makes this different is that it's being built by a news organization with actual roots in the communities it serves. Village Media operates newsrooms across Ontario, meaning the company has reporters, editors, and institutional knowledge embedded in the places where SPACES will operate. That proximity matters. A local news outlet understands what stories matter to a town, who the key figures are, what events draw people together. That context can shape how a platform evolves.
The company is already building a waitlist as the platform nears completion. The Inside the Village podcast, hosted by Scott Sexsmith and Michael Friscolanti (the Editor-in-Chief of Village Media), has become the vehicle for explaining the project to the public. The show, produced by Derek Turner, typically focuses on local journalism and provincial issues affecting Ontarians. Using it to introduce SPACES makes sense—it's a way to reach people who already care about local news and community connection.
What happens next depends on whether people actually show up. Social networks live or die by adoption. A beautifully designed platform with sound principles means nothing if no one uses it. Village Media will need to convince people that leaving the networks where their friends and family already gather is worth the friction. That's a steep hill. But the company is betting that enough people are tired of the status quo—tired of algorithms, tired of toxicity, tired of feeling disconnected from their actual communities—to give something new a chance. SPACES launches later this year. By then, we'll know whether that bet was sound.
Citações Notáveis
SPACES is our attempt to bring back genuine local engagement, helping you connect even deeper with the people, places, events and traditions that make your hometown so wonderful— Village Media (via SooToday)
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does a news organization need to build its own social network? Isn't that a huge departure from journalism?
It's not really a departure—it's an extension. Local news has always been about connecting people to their community. A social network is just a different tool for doing that. The difference is Village Media controls the space, so they can design it around civility and local connection instead of engagement metrics.
But won't they struggle to compete with Facebook and Instagram? Those platforms already have billions of users.
They're not trying to be Facebook. They're trying to be the place where your town gathers. That's a much smaller ambition, but it might be more achievable. If they can get 20 or 30 percent of people in a community using it, that becomes valuable.
What does "community-powered" actually mean? Who decides what happens on the platform?
That's the honest answer—the source material doesn't spell out the governance details. But the framing suggests it's not top-down moderation by corporate algorithms. It's probably some combination of community input and editorial oversight from the news organization.
Is there a risk that a news organization running a social network creates conflicts of interest?
Absolutely. If Village Media uses SPACES to promote its own stories, or if it silences criticism, that's a real problem. The success of the platform probably depends on whether they can resist that temptation and actually let the community lead.
When does it launch?
Later in 2024. So we're still in the waiting period. People can join the waitlist now, but the real test comes when it actually goes live and we see whether anyone shows up.