Entering the Age of Networks - Of Souls & Silos

PUBLIC POLICY NETWORKS AND ‘WICKED PROBLEMS’: A NASCENT SOLUTION?

The last two decades have seen a shift in public services organizations from hierarchies to networks. Network forms are seen as particularly suited to handling ‘wicked problems'. We make an assessmen...

Institute of Network Cultures | Ben Grosser: Planning the Exodus from Platform Realism

Thinking about the current state of platforms, I’m reminded of Mark Fisher’s articulation of capitalist realism, the idea that we don’t imagine or build alternatives to capitalism because we can no longer envision a world without it. Big tech, in a few short years, has managed to instill within the public a similar state of platform realism. So many are unable to imagine how global communication, media, search, etc. could ever function without the platforms. Despite a growing malaise, it’s become difficult for many to consider a world without big tech platforms as a viable conception of the future.

What people in the global majority need from networks

Or really, what some people in the global majority/Majority World need from networks, but that's too long for a headline.

Home - Nos: The Human Network

A decentralised mesh of communities and individuals built by and for the people. Nos is social media for humans, not algorithms.

Social Networking Utopia — Matt

In discussing the network topology of social networks — whether centralized like Facebook or federated like ActivityPub — I think the ult...

Come for the Network, Pay for the Tool

Paid groups, bespoke social networks, and the meaning of community for internet-native businesses.

We need network societies, not network states — The Collective Intelligence Project

Balaji Srinivasan's The Network State posits a choice between reaction and stasis. A brighter future does not await through network states, but through network societies.

After the Feed: Trust, connection, and the next era of social technology | New_ Public | May 2026

After the Feed: Trust, connection, and the next era of social technology By Eli Pariser, Co-Director, Angelica Quicksey, Managing Director, Arnobio Morelix, AI Fellow May 2026 Newpublic.org

After the Feed: Trust, connection, and the next era of social technology | New_ Public | May 2026

After the Feed: Trust, connection, and the next era of social technology By Eli Pariser, Co-Director, Angelica Quicksey, Managing Director, Arnobio Morelix, AI Fellow May 2026 Newpublic.org

How can open social protocols fail us in 2025 | shazow.net

Let’s compare the possible failure modes of various open social protocols: ActivityPub/Mastodon ATProto/Bluesky Farcaster/Warpcast Some scenarios I’d like to …

Bridges & The Last Network Effect

We're in an exciting moment for the open social web. As Elon makes one bad decision after another on X, we've seen waves of users leave the platform for alternatives. Three obvious beneficiaries of these, ahem, lapses of judgment are Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon. What's particularly interesting about these three

Elena Rossini 🌈 (@_elena@mastodon.social)

Do you remember the surprise announcement of a new social network in Davos this past January? Something that promised to be the "first" European social network? Its name is #WSocial and it's a fork of #Bluesky. Its founders have ties with European politicians - but there is no official involvement by the EU. You wouldn't know any of this from media reports because they all rehashed their talking points. So I wrote a post about it, dispelling some myths: https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-uncovered-the-reality-behind-the-hype/ #OpenWashing