There Are No Standards Police

Apple's Assault on Standards - Infrequently Noted

By subverting the voluntary nature of open standards, Apple has defanged them as tools that users can employ against the totalising power of native apps in their digital lives. This high-modernist approach is antithetical to the foundational commitments of internet standards bodies and, over time, erode them.

Centralization, Decentralization, and Internet Standards

This document discusses aspects of centralization that relate to Internet standards efforts. It argues that, while standards bodies have a limited ability to prevent many forms of centralization, they can still make contributions that assist in the decentralization of the Internet.

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

Society Desperately Needs An Alternative Web

In a world of rampant technology, and what will be the future of our planet, it is inflicting harms in the very fabric of society who depends on it. Is it too late to steer its path towards an internet intended to free information, preserve our privacy and be accountable to the needs of humanity?

Netiquette Guidelines

This document provides a minimum set of guidelines for Network Etiquette (Netiquette) which organizations may take and adapt for their own use. This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.

standards.group

standards.group — a forge for specs. Write, version, and publish specifications from your own AT Protocol account.

Centralization, Decentralization, and Internet Standards

Despite being designed and operated as a decentralized network-of- networks, the Internet is continuously subjected to forces that encourage centralization. This document offers a definition of centralization, explains why it is undesirable, identifies different types of it, catalogues limitations of common approaches to decentralization, and explores what Internet standards efforts can do to address it.

The Politics of Open Infrastructures: Power, Governance, and Justice in Digital Knowledge Practices

This volume examines how openness is designed, governed, contested and lived in contemporary digital knowledge infrastructures. From open source software and internet standards, to citizen science platforms, public sector data systems and alternative computing practices, the book shows that infrastructures are never neutral technical backbones.

Online age-verification tools spread across U.S. for child safety, but adults are being surveilled

New age-verification laws and tools are designed for child safety on social media and the internet, but adults are in the crosshairs, say privacy experts.

Who Shapes Web Standards? Uncovering the Main Topics of Interest in the W3C

Every Country Has Its Own Internet Now

A patchwork of privacy laws, teen social media bans, and "digital sovereignty" pushes means the Internet you see depends entirely on where you're standing.

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...

The Paradox of Open

Numerous organisations and initiatives have been launched with a belief in openness and free knowledge. Their proponents placed their bets on the combined power of networked information services and new governance models for the production and sharing of content and data. We – as members of this broad movement – were among those who believed it possible to leverage this combination of power and opportunity to build a more democratic society, unleashing the power of the internet to create universal access to knowledge and culture. For us, such openness meant not only freedom, but also presented a path to justice and equality.