Revolution.Social Building Human Rights Into the Social Web (with Mallory Knodel)
Nov 13, 2025
Mallory Knodel, executive director of the Social Web Foundation, is a digital human rights advocate and former CTO at the Center for Democracy & Technology. In this discussion, she delves into the power dynamics of Web 2.0 and the promise of decentralized protocols like ActivityPub. Mallory argues for contextual moderation and the importance of designing platforms for marginalized communities. She highlights the impact of Edward Snowden on internet standards and explores sustainable business models for open-source projects, envisioning a cooperative social web.
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Protocols Unlock Federated Social Web
- ActivityPub and ActivityStreams enable server-to-server social interoperability across platforms like Mastodon and Ghost.
- Open protocols let users run servers that control names, content, and moderation rules, reducing single-corporation control.
Protocols Offer A Second Chance
- The original loss of community ownership to VC-backed platforms stemmed from failing to build sustainable funding models.
- Open protocols now offer a second chance to create interoperable ecosystems with diverse ownership forms.
Moderation Must Be Contextual
- Content moderation is contextual and cannot be one-size-fits-all across cultures and communities.
- The Fediverse lets communities set local moderation and move where rules fit them, instead of imposing universal rules.