Custodians of the Internet

A revealing and gripping investigation into how social media platforms police what we post online—and the large societal impact of these decisions Most use...

Traditional Social Media as a Prison · What’s Happening on My Feed?

Social media apps have become a vehicle for community building, world news, and political campaigns. As app owners have enmeshed themselves more with the state, the carceral logics that haunt marginalized communities offline, became a part of their digital realities online.

Traditional Social Media as a Prison - What’s Happening on My Feed?

Social media apps have become a vehicle for community building, world news, and political campaigns. As app owners have enmeshed themselves more with the state, the carceral logics that haunt marginalized communities offline, became a part of their digital realities online.

Show your work: The new terms for trust in journalism - PressThink

The transparency movement has finally come of age. Power has shifted to the users. Their trust has to be earned in different ways now.

Social Media Is Now Parasocial Media

When practitioners used the term “social media” to describe the internet tools that emerged in the mid-aughts, they were giving a name to the kinds of platforms and protocols that allowed people to socialize with friends and communities of interest by using digital technologies. Twenty years later, users of social media are far more likely to scroll than post – and the content that they consume is often strategically produced and algorithmically curated. In this essay, I argue that the very essence of social media has changed. To more effectively interrogate what we are witnessing, we need to stop presuming that these tools are “social media” and begin recognizing that they are now “parasocial media.” Doing so raises new questions about digitally mediated sociality, not to mention the politics and governance of these platforms.

FediForum | Growing the Open Social Web un-workshop, 2026/03/02

W Don't Have Time (@wdonthavetime.selfhosted.social)

"Trust community, not wealth" Holding power accountable on the open social web. https://woosh.link/wdonthavetime.selfhosted.social

FediForum | Growing the Open Social Web:<br>An Online Un-Workshop

Since the Twitter takeover by Elon Musk over three years ago, the Open Social Web has been adopted by an enthusiastic community. People world-wide are building and using open social platforms and open social protocols to better interact with others online.

The Safe Social Media Act needs major fixes

Safety legislation is one step forward, two steps back

Bluesky 2025 Transparency Report - Bluesky

Throughout 2025, our Trust & Safety work was guided by the premise that social media should serve the people using it. Our transparency report provides data and details about those investments, and the progress we made this year.

Recently I’ve been thinking about a couple of... - Adam Wood

Recently I’ve been thinking about a couple of different tech-related things that sort of overlap. One is the (emerging) shape of the new social web; the other is a pull I’m feeling to try and lessen reliance on American companies.&nbsp; I’ve been interested in / concerned by what became of social media for some time.1 Since the sundering of Twitter in 2022, I’ve kept an eye on the various alternatives, with particular interest in Mastodon and Bluesky. Actually, to be more accurate, my interest has been in the protocols behind those platforms: ActivityPub and AT Protocol respectively. Both have their...