Imzy Will Shut Down for Good on the 23rd of June

Imzy

On the face of it, creating a social network built around kindness was a laudable concept. Certainly, when Imzy was first launched a little under a year ago, there was a swell of interest. It was set up by a small group of former Reddit staffers who were fed up with the culture of abuse that continues to bubble beneath social media culture. To counteract it, they built a platform with a set of rules which essentially made it near-impossible to be abusive.

Seemingly, it had been doing rather well, sporting tens of thousands of users split across thousands of separate communities, but those figures didn't translate into financial growth, it would seem, and now the young platform is shutting down for good. Seems like there just weren't enough people interested in a social network built around kindness.

Imzy had largely been financed by a crowd-funding campaign which raised an impressive $11 million, and apparently there's still a substantial amount left, but founders Dan McComas and Jessica Moreno wanted to shut the platform down while they were still in the black. That suggests that they're working on something new - putting the remaining funding to practical use. That, or they're keeping the money for themselves, but given that they set out to make a social network where people could be nice to each other, I doubt that massive online theft is really their bag.

Everyone who signed up to use the service, some of whom have been with it since the beginning, can at least rest easy knowing that their data has been protected. In his closing statement, McComas included a link that users can use to request their personal data. Additionally, the community board has stayed open, allowing the grieving user base to console each other and eulogise the service properly.

It's a real shame, the principle of a social network acting as a refuge against trolls holds a lot of water, and Imzy was always meant to be a small-scale community, but they just didn't have the capital to support that structure. Hopefully whatever McComas and Moreno are working on next will carry on Imzy's spirit, but for now, rest in peace, we hardly knew ye.

Callum Davies

Callum is a film school graduate who is now making a name for himself as a journalist and content writer. His vices include flat whites and 90s hip-hop. Follow him @Songbird_Callum

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