Babil is edited by Murmures, a French cooperative based in the Isère department.
Murmures, in a nutshell
Murmures was founded in January 2025 as a cooperative company. Its founding line reads:
« Chez Murmures, nous construisons un espace où des savoir-faire hautement rémunérés cohabiteront avec des métiers essentiels trop souvent dévalorisés, grâce à un modèle économique solidaire et équitable. »
In practice, Murmures combines three activities under a single cooperative roof — software development, organisational coaching, and personal-care services (service à la personne) — and redistributes income across them so that well-paid expertise helps fund essential but chronically under-valued work. Everyone working at Murmures can become an associate, and decisions are taken democratically.
Why a cooperative is editing a social network
Babil's core claim — that the recommendation algorithm should serve users, not extract value from them — isn't only a technical position. It's an economic one. A company whose survival depends on maximising ad revenue will eventually optimise its algorithm for that, no matter what it says in public. A company whose survival depends on its cooperative members will not.
That is why Babil is not a venture-backed start-up. It is a project of a cooperative whose governance, by design, cannot be captured by a third-party investor or acquirer looking for the next quarter. If we fail, it will be because we weren't useful enough — not because someone sold us out.
Where to go next
- Why Babil — the manifesto: what we believe about algorithmic transparency and why we think it has to be legislated.
- murmures.coop — the cooperative's own website, with more detail on its three activities and its governance.
- Imprint — formal legal-notice information about who operates this service.
Contact
General enquiries about the cooperative: babil@murmures.coop. For questions specific to Babil (privacy, account, content moderation), see the Imprint.