Hyperlocal platform Jodel’s founder on resonating with privacy-conscious Saudi users and its GCC ambitions
Jodel’s founder Alessio Avellan Borgmeyer talks about anonymity, trust, and how Saudi Arabia’s highly engaged users are driving the hyperlocal platform’s product strategy as it expands across the GCC
11 June, 2026
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In a social media landscape dominated by global giants built on followers, influence, and personal brands, Jodel has taken a deliberately different path. The hyperlocal platform starts not with who you are, but where you are: connecting users anonymously to the conversations happening in their own city, from traffic updates in Riyadh to campus life in Dammam and local recommendations in Khobar.
he model has found a strong footing than in Saudi Arabia, which has evolved from a fast-growing user market into a core driver of Jodel’s global product strategy. With roughly half of the kingdom’s daily users actively posting, replying, or chatting, and 76 per cent saying the app shows them what’s happening in their local community, the country is now shaping everything from the platform’s feed design and Arabic-dialect moderation to its newly launched Trust Hub.
Gulf Business spoke with Alessio Avellan Borgmeyer, founder of Jodel, about why hyperlocal is resonating with the Gulf’s young, privacy-conscious users, how the platform localises without fragmenting, and what success in the region looks like as it expands across the GCC.
Saudi Arabia has evolved into a core product and strategy driver for Jodel rather than just a user market. What specific insights or behaviours from the Saudi user base are now shaping how the platform is built and scaled globally?
Saudi Arabia genuinely sharpened our thinking. Users did not wait for us to define the use case for them; they found Jodel, adopted it, and showed us what they needed from it.
The clearest signal is active participation. Around half of daily users in Saudi Arabia post, reply or chat, so this is not passive scrolling. It is a conversation. And the most valuable conversations are often very practical: ‘how is traffic right now’, ‘what is happening locally this weekend’, ‘where should I go’, and observations and expressions of daily life. In our latest Saudi survey, 76 per cent of users agreed they can see what is happening in their local community on Jodel, which goes straight to our mission: enabling everyone to discover and engage with the community around them.
That behaviour has shaped the roadmap in very concrete ways. Voice notes and image sharing make local exchanges more immediate. Feed improvements help surface useful nearby content faster. Safety prompts encourage people to pause before posting something inflammatory. And our moderation infrastructure is increasingly built around Arabic dialects, local norms and human judgement, not just generic rules.
Jodel positions itself as a hyperlocal, community-first platform. How does that fundamentally differ from global social networks, and why do you think that model is resonating more strongly with younger users in the region?
Most global social networks begin with identity: your profile, your followers, your reach. Jodel begins with a place. The conversation starts with what is happening around you, not with who you are trying to be online.
That changes the behaviour completely. Without public profiles, follower counts, or status signals, people are less focused on performing and more focused on asking, answering, helping, reacting to the moment and genuinely expressing themselves. Someone in Riyadh can check traffic before leaving, a student in Dammam can ask about campus life, or someone in Khobar can find a real recommendation from people nearby.
That resonates strongly in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf because users here are highly digital, but also highly privacy-aware. They understand reputation. They know content can travel. Jodel gives them a way to discover and engage with the community around them without turning every interaction into a personal brand moment. That balance, local relevance with privacy, is the heart of the model.
We’re seeing a broader shift away from large, public social platforms toward smaller, more private and meaningful communities. How is Jodel adapting its product to reflect this change in user behaviour?
This shift validates what Jodel was built for, but it also raises the bar for us. People do not just want smaller spaces; they want spaces that feel useful, respectful and worth returning to.
In Saudi Arabia, we already see that in the way people use Jodel. Conversations naturally centre on everyday life: work, university, wellbeing, local recommendations, city updates, how they’re feeling at that very moment. It is not about broadcasting to the world. It is about getting a real answer from people who share the same local context and the feeling of belonging that comes with that.
So we are building for depth, not noise. That means city-level feeds that reflect genuine local diversity, clearer paths into useful conversations, and features that make exchange feel more human, from richer chat formats to local content discovery. It also means safety tools that de-escalate rather than amplify tension, including prompts that ask users to pause before posting something inflammatory. And through the Trust Hub, we are making the rules, controls and processes easier to see. Trust is not built by asking people to believe you. It is built by showing how the platform works.
As you expand across the GCC, including the UAE, how do you approach localisation without diluting the core product experience, particularly in markets with different cultural sensitivities?
Localisation is not just translation for us. It is tone, dialect, timing, moderation judgement and an understanding of what feels respectful in a given market. Saudi Arabia has taught us a lot here because the country is digitally sophisticated and scaling quickly, while users remain very aware of reputation, screenshots and context.
A post about traffic in Riyadh, a university question in Dammam or a local recommendation in Khobar may look simple, but the language, humour and boundaries around it matter.
As we look across the GCC, including the UAE, we keep the same product promise, but adapt how our systems read context. That means Arabic dialects, local norms and hybrid AI-human moderation working together. The aim is simple: make Jodel feel local without making it fragmented.
While the underlying system stays the same, the way that it operates reflects the local environment and norms. In the UAE or Qatar, the Saudi moderation framework is adjusted to serve a diverse regional audience with its own blend of cultural sensitivities. The focus is less about changing the product and more about ensuring it works appropriately within each context.
Trust and moderation remain key challenges for anonymous platforms. What does the launch of the Trust Hub signal about how Jodel is rethinking governance, transparency, and accountability?
It is a key challenge for all social networks, and for us, and for me in particular, trust starts with making the experience understandable and the rules visible. Users should not have to guess what happens when they report something, appeal a decision or use safety controls. On an anonymous platform, that clarity matters even more.
We combine community reporting, human moderation and AI systems trained around language and context, including Arabic dialects and local norms. But the human layer is important, because culture and intent are not always obvious from words alone. We also believe in small, practical interventions inside the product, such as asking someone to pause before posting when a message appears heated. That can change the tone of a thread before it becomes a problem.
Think of someone reporting harassment in a local discussion, or appealing a post they believe was misunderstood. The Trust Hub is there to make those pathways clearer as a practical part of the user experience.
From a strategy perspective, what does success look like for Jodel in the region over the next few years, scale, engagement, or depth of community, and how are you prioritising between them?
Scale matters, of course. But for us, the real measure of success is whether Jodel becomes part of people’s everyday rhythm in a useful way. In the region, that means people come back because the app helps them navigate daily life in a way other platforms do not.
The 76 per cent of users who say they can see what is happening in their local community on Jodel is the kind of signal we care about. It tells us Jodel is doing something useful. I would rather have a community where people can share what’s on their mind, ask, answer, report, joke, recommend and help each other than a large audience that only scrolls.
In Saudi Arabia, the opportunity is to be there for everyday local moments: checking road conditions, finding a local service, asking about university life, discovering an event, or simply seeing what the city is talking about tonight. Growth should follow usefulness. That is the order of the day for everyone who works in our team.
If we protect the quality of local interaction, engagement and scale become much healthier outcomes.
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