Diaspora started as a project run by four students at New York University's Courant Institute. They proposed to build an open-source, distributed social network as an alternative to companies such as Facebook.
Diaspora is now run by a team of volunteers. It is an open and free social network that anonymises users and gives them control of their personal data.
The organisation is a non-profit, user-owned, distributed social network that is based upon the free Diaspora software. Diaspora consists of a group of independently owned nodes (called pods) which interoperate to form the network. As of March 2014, there were more than one million Diaspora accounts.
The social network is not owned by any one person or entity, keeping it from being subject to corporate take-overs or advertising. In September 2011 the developers stated, "...our distributed design means no big corporation will ever control Diaspora. Diaspora will never sell your social life to advertisers, and you won’t have to conform to someone’s arbitrary rules or look over your shoulder before you speak."