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Connected Places

Detail in the openairmuseum of Ootmarsum

Laurens Hof

Broken red chain

Federation Has a European Legal Problem

What the Russmedia ruling means for ActivityPub and atproto.
Bill Reid's "The Raven and the First Men."

Reflections on AtmosphereConf

A reflection on AtmosphereConf, understanding this network as a subculture, joy, and what "We Can Just Do Things" actually means
Detail of a Belgian wall

The Purpose of Protocols

Every open social protocol generates shared resources, but none has produced a governance framework adequate to those resources. So who fills that vacuum?
Detail of the city Luik

Where Does Community Live?

ActivityPub and ATProto both promise to rebuild social life online, but they answer the question of where community actually forms in fundamentally different ways. Protocol design is institutional design, and right now those institutions are being built.
Fence on an old graveyard

The Digital Services Act and Theories of Power

The European Commission put a 120M EUR fine on X for DSA violations. But as the European politicians cannot get themselves to leave the platform, it shows the issues with how they understand how power works on social platforms.
Detail of the city Luik

On the coordination for better moderation systems

There is a need for better moderation systems on the fediverse. But getting people to coordinate to build and adopt such systems is proving to be a challenge.
Detail of the city Luik

‘Blueskyism’, Political Violence, and Open Social Networks Under Authoritarianism

After Kirk's murder, calls for censorship and the crackdown on political places started to include Bluesky. Open social networks must now fight political suppression as well as platform monopolies.
Detail of the current in a small water

On discourse and decentralisation

protecting apple trees

SocialHub and the Substrate of Decentralised Networks

SocialHub, one of the primary forums to talk about the fediverse and ActivityPub, has been struggling how to continue the operation. Decentralised networks need a coordination layer, but how to build this in a decentralised manner?
Detail of building in Amsterdam-North

Funding Update and Summer Schedule