The Sovereign Protocol War

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.

W-Social: What does sovereignty mean for social media? – Open Future

The European Commission’s move to W-Social frames it as a European alternative to X, but its closed-source code and reliance on Bluesky’s infrastructure show that sovereign social media requires open infrastructure—not European ownership alone.

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

Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web - Neustadt.fr

We are quietly replacing an open web that connects and empowers with one that restricts and commoditizes people. We need to stop it.

European Commission (@EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu)

Attached: 1 image A strong Europe needs independent digital spaces. We believe true digital sovereignty thrives on a competitive, contestable, open ecosystem where diverse platforms co-exist. Today, we’re expanding our presence to W, the new social media. By being on W, we want to boost alternatives and support all efforts toward a decentralised web. And we continue to invest into our presence on the Fediverse!

The Internet is a Series of Webs

The fate of the open web is inextricable from the other ways our world is in crisis. What can we do about it?

EU praises open source for tech sovereignty — then backs W, a private for-profit microblogging platform

To fundamentally understand why it's strange the EU Commission is throwing its weight behind this new for-profit social platform, you need to understand what lies beneath.

EU praises open source for tech sovereignty — then backs W, a private for-profit microblogging platform

To fundamentally understand why it's strange the EU Commission is throwing its weight behind this new for-profit social platform, you need to understand what lies beneath.

The Case for Open Sovereignty in a Fragmenting Internet

Once, the Internet promised to dissolve borders. It was humanity’s great experiment in connection — a place where ideas, innovation, and communities could move freely, unburdened by geography or...

We need to protect the protocol that runs Bluesky

If we don’t act soon, our online world will continue to be run at the whim of capricious billionaires.

Facebook’s war on free will

The long read: How technology is making our minds redundant

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…

Chat Control & Going Dark: The war on encryption is on the rise. Through a shady collaboration between the US and the EU.

After Snowden’s whistleblowing in 2013, large parts of the internet became encrypted, enabling private and secure communication. Not everyone has welcomed this change. Most notably, the FBI and other U.S. government agencies have fought what is often called the “crypto wars”, the war on encryption. In recent years, they have been joined by the European Commission. Under the slogan “what about the children,” they try to introduce total mass surveillance of all EU citizens — first through the proposed Chat Control legislation, and later via the Going Dark and ProtectEU initiatives. The goal is to legally mandate spy tools on every European smartphone and computer. The forces behind these efforts have turned out to be American tech companies and intelligence agencies.