rabble on Nostr: In a couple days I’m going to a symposium on social media middleware. In Nostr, ...

In a couple days I’m going to a symposium on social media middleware. In Nostr, that’s everything that isn’t the client, the relay, or the events. All the services we’ve built around Nostr which make it work. I’m going to give a brief 5 minute talk about how we do middleware in Nostr. How we host content with media severs, how search engines work on nostr, wallets for payments, spam detection, nip-05 name servers, and moderation bots like the ever controversial @reportinator.

We spent so much time talking about how to make Nostr sucessful, what users need, and how to avoid centralization. I'm looking forward to a discussion about how we build these services in a way that's open and permissionless to operate on the network. In prep, they've collected a bunch of articles on the subject which I thought would be really helpful for people using and developing Nostr to read as well. So i'm sharing them here.

https://www.thefai.org/events/symposium-on-shaping-the-future-of-social-media-with-middleware

**Exploring the Impact of Middleware on Social Media and Digital Democracy**

Discover a series of enlightening readings that delve into the concept of middleware and its potential to reshape social media governance and enhance digital democracy. Here’s a curated list of essential articles and papers from leading experts and institutions:

- **Fukuyama et. al.** presents "Middleware for Dominant Digital Platforms: A Technological Solution to a Threat to Democracy," a Stanford Cyber Policy Center publication that explores middleware as a countermeasure to the monopolistic tendencies of major digital platforms. https://fsi-live.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/cpc-middleware_ff_v2.pdf

- **Keller, 2021** discusses the practical implementation and challenges in "The Future of Platform Power: Making Middleware Work," published in the Journal of Democracy. https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-future-of-platform-power-making-middleware-work/

- In another piece, **Fukuyama, 2021** extends the discussion in "The Future of Platform Power: Solving for a Moving Target," also featured in the Journal of Democracy. https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-future-of-big-tech-solving-for-a-moving-target/

- **Keller, 2021** offers a critical view on content amplification issues in "Amplification and Its Discontents," from the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. https://knightcolumbia.org/content/amplification-and-its-discontents

- **Lauffer & Nissenbaum, 2023** analyze the "Algorithmic Displacement of Social Trust," a significant study on the erosion of social trust by algorithmic decisions, published by the Knight First Amendment Institute. https://knightcolumbia.org/content/algorithmic-displacement-of-social-trust

- **Rozenshtein, 2023** explores decentralized social network moderation in "Moderating the Fediverse: Content Moderation on Distributed Social Media," published in the Journal of Free Speech Law. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4213674

- From the Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure at UMass Amherst, **Idpiumass, 2023** proposes a compact internet model in "The Three-Legged Stool: A Manifesto for a Smaller, Denser Internet." https://publicinfrastructure.org/2023/03/29/the-three-legged-stool/

- **Lane, 2022** introduces "Gobo 2.0: All Your Social Media in One Place," a unified social media interface project, also from UMass Amherst. https://publicinfrastructure.org/2022/11/09/gobo-2-0-all-your-social-media-in-one-place/

- **Ovadya & Thorburn, 2023** tackle "Bridging Systems: Open problems for countering destructive divisiveness across ranking, recommenders, and governance," available through the Knight First Amendment Institute. https://knightcolumbia.org/content/bridging-systems

- **Reisman, 2023** explores broader applications of middleware in "A New, Broader, More Fundamental Case for Social Media Agent 'Middleware,'" featured on the Smartly Intertwingled Blog. https://ucm.teleshuttle.com/2023/11/a-new-broader-more-fundamental-case-for.html

- In "New Logics for Governing Human Discourse in the Online Era," **Reisman, 2024** addresses the evolving challenges in digital discourse governance, published by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI https://www.cigionline.org/publications/new-logics-for-governing-human-discourse-in-the-online-era/

- **Reisman & Riley, 2022** detail forgotten foundational internet principles in "Delegation, Or, The Twenty Nine Words That The Internet Forgot," available on TechPolicyPress. https://www.techpolicy.press/delegation-or-the-twenty-nine-words-that-the-internet-forgot/

- **Thorburn, Bengani, & Stray, 2022** break down the mechanics of platform recommenders in "How Platform Recommenders Work," published on Medium. https://medium.com/understanding-recommenders/how-platform-recommenders-work-15e260d9a15a

- **Newitz, 2023** imagines historical enthusiasm for modern platforms in "Ben Franklin Would Have Loved Bluesky," featured in The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/05/social-media-centralism-fediverse/674041/

- **Masnick, 2019** advocates for a foundational shift in "Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech," a pivotal piece from the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. https://knightcolumbia.org/content/protocols-not-platforms-a-technological-approach-to-free-speech

- **Whitt, 2021** delves into digital autonomy in "Hacking the SEAMs: Elevating Digital Autonomy and Agency for Humans," published in the Colorado Technology Law Journal. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I8IAxowzYIq1tH_BfA0y2yKY3z2ydCMu/view

- **Stasi, 2023** discusses competitive approaches to free speech in "Social media markets: A pro-competitive approach to free speech challenges," from Tilburg University. https://research.tilburguniversity.edu/en/publications/social-media-markets-a-pro-competitive-approach-to-free-speech-ch

- **Reisman, 2023** examines privacy solutions in "How Third-Party Social Media Middleware Can Protect Contextual Privacy," available through TechPolicyPress. https://techpolicy.press/how-third-party-social-media-middleware-can-protect-contextual-privacy/

- Lastly, **Ovadya, 2022** discusses "Bridging-Based Ranking" at the Belfer Center, focusing on middleware and addressing centralization. This piece includes references to connected publications on platform democracy. https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/bridging-based-ranking

This collection provides a comprehensive overview of the critical discussions around middleware, offering various perspectives on how technology can be leveraged to foster a more democratic and user-empowering digital environment.