Frequently Asked Questions

At Northsocial.ca, our current goal is to solve the problem of local discovery and community that mainstream platforms often overlook. We're building a place to celebrate local communities, businesses and creators - all across Canada. Thanks for checking us out!

We don't use personalized, engagement-maximizing algorithms. You choose who you follow, and content from those accounts is prioritized over content from accounts you don't follow. There are also public vs. private feeds, so control stays with you.

In the near future, we'll introduce optional sorting based on reactions and comments, in addition to the existing most-recent post/comment sort. We also plan to offer optional content discovery features later on, which will be clearly identified and entirely opt-in.

We follow our Terms of Service, which are enforced equally across the political spectrum.

We are working on video support in the mid-to-near future!

Today, you can create a Private Group for the people you want to talk with — it gives you a shared space for posts and comments. A simpler, chat-only experience (just messages, not posts with comments) is coming in the mid-future. In the meantime, the Private feed is made up of Private posts between mutual Connections. For more on how Private vs Public and Follows vs Connections differ, visit Northsocial.ca/Quick-Start-Guide

We actively monitor for and remove fake and bot accounts. This is an ongoing, evolving effort, and one we take very seriously. We do use AI to assist with moderation, but only to flag potential issues for human review. Content is not used to train external models and is not shared outside our organization.

Handles are used to @mention people and groups, and to give a shorter profile link you can share (like northsocial.ca/@yourname). A handle is required, must be unique, and can't contain spaces or special characters. People and groups share a single handle namespace, so the same handle can never belong to more than one profile — whether a person or a group.

On a post's comments, click the Reply button on someone's comment to reply to them — their @handle is added to the comment box automatically. You can also type @handle anywhere to mention someone. Full notifications for mentions and replies are coming soon!

Our app is on the way! Just waiting for final approval from the app stores.

Groups are community spaces on Northsocial.ca where Canadians can come together around shared interests, organizations, or causes. Each Group has its own handle (like @TorontoFoodies), profile page, posts, and member list.

Anyone with a complete profile can create a Group. Visit the Groups page from the navigation menu, pick a handle and name, choose your visibility settings, and decide whether new members need your approval to join. You'll automatically become the Owner of your new Group.

A Group's visibility setting decides who can find the Group itself. Public Groups appear in search and can be discovered by anyone, Private Groups are members-only, and Both lets a Group mix public posts (which anyone can see) with private posts (which only members can see).

When you post inside a Group, you choose whether each post is Private (visible only to members) or Public (visible to everyone, with a chip showing it was posted in the Group). If the Group is Private-only, every post is members-only.

Browse Groups from the navigation menu or visit a Group's profile directly. If the Group accepts everyone, selecting Join makes you a Member instantly. If the Group requires approval, your join request goes to the Group's Admins, who can approve or decline it.

Once you're a Member, you can post in the Group, comment and react on members-only posts, and see the full member list. You can leave a Group at any time.

The name is intentionally a bit tongue-in-cheek. We're fully committed to building a social platform, rooted in Canadian values. We're continuously evolving, and we're confident the platform and the community will speak for what Northsocial.ca stands for 🍁

Zynim Media Inc. is a small team based out of Chilliwack, BC. A local group of cofounders and Zynim Inc. partnered to build, launch, and grow Northsocial.ca. Zynim Inc. has supported Canadian businesses and organizations with custom software for over 30 years. For the last eight years, we have also collaborated with local municipal and education partners to host events that support new tech startups.

If you're ever in town during one of our events, we'd love to say hi and chat more about what we do! You can also reach out at any time at [email protected], and we'll be happy to answer your questions.

All your data is stored in Canada. Private information is stored and delivered from secure servers in Canada. Public content is also served from Canadian servers, but to make it load faster, we use a global delivery network (this applies only to public content).

Northsocial.ca is ready to use today — no waitlists. In keeping with our Canadian roots, we went live on Canada Day 2025!

The team would be happy to help! Please feel free to contact us at Support page, and we can get you started.

You can delete your account at any time from your account settings — choose Delete Account, confirm with the code we email you, and type DELETE. Your posts and comments are hidden right away, and your account is permanently deleted after a 14-day grace period (sign back in during that time to cancel and restore everything). For full details, visit Northsocial.ca/AccountDelete