Skip to content
Standard Reader
Log in
Laurens
Author

Laurens

@laurenshof.online
Follow

I care about an ethical internet. I write about Bluesky, the atmosphere and open social protocols at connectedplaces.online 🇳🇱

Connected Places
Connected PlacesSep 28, 2026
Fediverse News – Summer 2026
Fediverse software updates, summer 2026 edition
nlnetWeekly Report
Connected Places
Connected PlacesSep 21, 2026
The Algorithm, Apparently Chronological
A German court has explicitly named Mastodon and Bluesky as positive examples of social networks that could retain hosting protection. It gets Bluesky’s feeds wrong, but its reasoning about user control might be more useful than it realises.
Analysis
Connected Places
Connected PlacesSep 16, 2026
AI watermarking has a decentralisation problem
With AI watermarking inference providers mark their output as AI generated. But for the system to become useful, lots of independent providers need to collaborate together in a decentralised system without overarching governance.
Analysis
Connected Places
Connected PlacesJun 25, 2026
FR#168 - LLMs Join The Fediverse
How to build a fediverse community when bots are indistinguishable from humans on applications to join?
nlnet
Connected Places
Connected PlacesJun 23, 2026
The Permission Machine
When Elon Musk calls to imprison the government, it turns out not to matter very much. But when thousands of accounts repeat each other, it matters enormously.
nlnetAnalysis
Connected Places
Connected PlacesJun 18, 2026
Decrypting Matrix - Where Do Rooms Go?
Matrix has been running private rooms on open protocols for a decade, and they ended up inside European governments. This piece is about why happened, and why it does not have to be the result of the various projects for private data and rooms on the open social web too.
nlnetAnalysis
Connected Places
Connected PlacesJun 17, 2026
FR#167 - Change
On coordination in a decentralised network, and the European Social Stack declaration.
nlnet
Connected Places
Connected PlacesJun 12, 2026
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.
nlnet
Connected Places
Connected PlacesMay 28, 2026
FR#164 – The Pope on Defederation
This week, the Catholic Church wrote one of the better diagnoses of why decentralised social networks keep struggling.
1
nlnet
Connected Places
Connected PlacesMay 20, 2026
FR#163 – Decrypting Matrix
On the convergence towards private data on social networking protocols, and the connection to Matrix
nlnet
Connected Places
Connected PlacesMay 13, 2026
FR#162 – EU Regulation Won’t Save Open Social Networks
The European Commission has decided not to extend the Digital Markets Act's interoperability rules to social media, closing off a potential pathway for adoption for open social networks.
nlnet
Connected Places
Connected PlacesMay 6, 2026
FR#161 – Conference Edition
How the conferences FediForum and 2mr.social this week show how fediverse is trying to build connections with European politics, as well as with the atmosphere.
nlnet