New Paradigms in Trust and Safety: Navigating Defederation on Decentralized Social Media Platforms

Defederation on decentralized social media offers new possibilities for online governance. Experts consider how it can be used responsibly, in a way that balances speech and safety.

Russia's tightening grip on internet fuels public discontent

Officials say the restrictions are for public safety, but businesses and the public are feeling the impact.

FR#166 – No Change

Many people in Europe see the open social web as a path to digital sovereignty. This week demonstrated a problem: the assumption that European governments actually want to be sovereign.

Long Live the Web: A Call for Continued Open Standards and Neutrality

The Web is critical not merely to the digital revolution but to our continued prosperity—and even our liberty. Like democracy itself, it needs defending

Framing to Grow the Open Social Web and Serve Democratic Freedoms – Position Paper / Richard Reisman

Framing to Grow the Open Social Web and Serve Democratic Freedoms – Position Paper Richard Reisman (Discussion Draft 2/13/26) For FediForum Un-Workshop March 2, 2026 Growing the usage and functionality of the social web to meet the needs of humanity requires a broadened framing of the task and ...

The Moderation article

The internet was antiblack from day one. A breakdown of AT Protocol's moderation stack and Blacksky's plan to build community-controlled protection.

Eaten by the Internet

This book makes internet infrastructure visible as a force of political power, which is transforming the social world, from the bottom up—through fifteen chapters contributed by a global set of researchers, activists, and techies. We are living a unique moment: internet technologies are the default infrastructure for society, not just how we communicate but also how we organise our social life, politics, and economy, all the way down to our material environments, like cities. Our world is eaten by the internet. This means that those who control the internet control the bounds of public speech, economic production, social cohesion, and politics, making its infrastructure a core political terrain in the networked age. The book’s chapters cover a wide set of topics, spanning from the global politics of content moderation by internet infrastructure to the colonialism inherent in the race to plug the moon, from the harms wrought by blockchain companies in rural America to the particularities of online censorship across Asia. The chapters take on thorny topics, discussing power consolidation in the advertisement and cloud industry, the role of internet infrastructure in the war in Ukraine, and tech’s environmental impact—amongst others. In doing so, this book roots contemporary technology debates in the politics of internet infrastructure and urges us to ask how can we ensure our infrastructures sustain us, rather than consume us?

The Inexorable Push For Infrastructure Moderation

I’m grateful to Techdirt and the EFF for this series. There are so many legitimately difficult issues around content moderation at the application layer—that is, on (and usually by) pla…

We’re in the middle of a perfect storm for rollback of the “open web” and burgeoning online surveillance

Looking at fallout of the KOSA hearings today — and subsequent commentary — I remain optimistic for the development of social technology & communication but I’m beginning to think the ope…

Scaling sustainable social networks in the public interest | Heinrich Böll Stiftung | Brussels office - European Union

This policy paper identifies five key challenges for scaling a public-interest social web: infrastructure, governance, funding, attractiveness, and public mandate. It outlines a roadmap for overcoming these challenges and building the Open Social Web Alliance into a relevant force within months — starting in Germany.

The secret rules of the internet

The murky history of moderation, and how it’s shaping the future of free speech.

The secret rules of the internet

The murky history of moderation, and how it’s shaping the future of free speech.

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

The Internet is a Global Public Resource | The Mozilla Blog

One of the things that first drew me to Mozilla was this sentence from our manifesto: “The Internet is a global public resource that must remain open and