A long thought extinct species of humankind has been discovered hiding deep within the depths of the little known and rarely spoken about “GNU Social” network, according to researchers at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.

Professor Robert Stynes, who lead the intriguing research, says that the findings are quite an achievement in modern times. “You peer long enough into the deep dark depths of the internet, you can still find some interesting examples of mankind that we honestly thought was long extinct,” he said. “Be aware we’re not talking about FSF (Free Software Foundation) members here. We already know they were using networks such as GNU Social, which was the core area of our research. After all, they created it. What fascinated us was that you could actually find other people in GNU Social. Our research finds that not only did some humans actually find and manage to work out how to get onto GNU Social, which was quite a surprise in itself, but that they themselves exhibit some fascinating traits not seen amongst many of our fellow modern human beings and compatriots.”

Professor Stynes believes that in an age of Facebook, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Instagram and, increasingly, many others, it is truly “mind blowing” that people not only worked out how to access and use GNU Social services, but seem to actively avoid other modern messaging and social platforms. “I think it’s fair to say even above average intellect individuals with much experience with the internet and technology would go to the GNU Social homepage and have not a clue what the actual thing is or how to really access it,” he continued. “So it’s even more surprising that these particular human beings did, in fact, work it out. Our research found these humans most often don’t actually have Facebook or other popular social media accounts and as such, do not seem to be socially ‘connected’ to family members on this platform. We’re not even sure they’re connected to friends. In fact, we don’t really know what they do on there at all.”

The Smithsonian researchers did wish to stress that they did not believe this to be a “subclass” of human, but rather that the available data was still just insufficient to properly categorize the people in question. “These people, other than the oft outspoken FSF members of course, seem to be quite secretive and very much in favor of privacy,” added Dr. Mary Temperance. “We only have fragments of data and information on this particular species of human. We do theorize, however, that these people perhaps use old fashioned telecommunications and physical mail services instead of the ‘Facebooks’ and ‘WhatsApps’ of today to keep in contact with most of their family and friends. If so, they are truly of a dying breed that we did in fact believe long extinct. Since 2007 or so.”